Johnfkennedypresident Hugh Sidey

$0.
95
John E Kennedy,
President
A.
Reporter's Inside Story
Hugh Sidey
This
is
a narrative history of a
It
young
presi
dent in the White House.

a
was written by
young
journalist
who
has had a unique
view of the making and the testing of an
American government.
From the moment of his
election in
Novem
as
ber 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy faced
many
crises as,
perhaps any president since
Lincoln.
Confronting
him immediately
were the problems of Laos, Berlin and

Cuba, of selecting a cabinet and making am
bassadorial appointments.
And
there
would
be
crises to
come
that could not be antici
pated during that cold and snowy wintjsr.
Hugh
House
first
Sidey,
who
has covered the
White
for
Time during the New

is
Frontier's
two
years,
particularly well
equipped
to report
to write
about the President, and

his
on the making of
new government. In
(continued on back flap)
KANSAS
CITY, MO. PUBLIC
LIBRARY
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Sidey John F.
Kennedy, President
975.92
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63-l?lt68
Sidey John F. Kennedy, President

Dap. 6/12/67
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JOHN F. KENNEDY,
PRESIDENT
HUGH SIDEY
JOHN
F.
KENNEDY, PRESIDENT
THENE UM
NEW YORK
1963
Copyright
1963
by Hugh Sidey
All rights reserved
Library of Congress catalog card number 63-7800 Published simultaneously in Canada by McClelland & Stewart Ltd. Manufactured in the United States of America by H. Wolff, New York
Designed by Harry Ford

First Edition
TO
JV JV
KANSAS
CITY (MO.) PUBLIC LIBRARY
U TH
'
NO TE
s is
TH
F.
a reporter's story of a
new
president, a
new
rative than
government, the New Frontier. It is more of a nar an analysis, though the two never can be
fully separated.
deals mostly with crises because such was John Kennedy's lot during the first two years of his administra tion, roughly the span of the story. It tells of the making of
The book
the
Kennedy government.
facts,
with few exceptions, were gathered by myself intensive observation of the new administration. through This is an outsider's view of inside the White House. It is
official account, sanctioned by the White House. Most of the material was collected at the time of the events and put down on paper in detail. This is not a book which relies on hazy memories. Those scenes inside the White House of the President at work with his close advisers or those simply reflecting on the world in which he had become so vital and powerful an ele ment were either witnessed by me or reconstructed a short
The
not an
time after the events by talking with the participants. I first met John Kennedy in a Senate elevator in 1958.
And
almost from that time on, reporting about him (and his family, the two sometimes becoming indistinguishable) became a full-
time job. I followed him through the precampaign era when he was gathering delegates for the Democratic nomination. I watched him win the crucial primaries in Wisconsin and West
Virginia and stood below
hall
him on
the floor of the convention
accepted his party's nomination in Los Angeles in July, 1960. 1 reported his successful national campaign and
the formation of his government.
when he
And when
he moved
to the
White House,
assignment shifted there, too. For more than two years I have lived his life traveling to meet heads of state, to week ends in Hyannis Port and Palm Beach,
my
watching him as he addressed Congress and greeted the White House.
visitors at
AUTHOR'S NOTE
It
occurred to
me
one day
as I sorted
through more than a
million words of research on John Kennedy that I had per haps covered him as long and as intently as any other reporter
in Washington. I decided a book this book.
to distill
some of
that material into
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
six directly or indirectly on nearly his and F. of family, so Kennedy years reporting John the list of all those kind persons who have helped me
i
book draws
TH
But
just
I
along the way would be too long to print.

to
them
all,
in a
hundred
cities across this
land and
overseas
Republicans, Democrats, government workers, and
I say thanks, deeply and sincerely. private citizens of incalculable course, owe, gratitude to John F. Kennedy, who as senator, candidate and president took time to talk to me in many crucial moments. To his wife Jacqueline, his
father,
and Mrs. Robert
Joseph P. Kennedy, his brother and sister-in-law, Mr. F. Kennedy, I also owe a special thank you.
for the President I
Among those who work

who
know
of
no one
has not patiently, and even cheerfully, endured my per sistent fact gathering. This group not only includes the im
mediate
staff
of the President
tut the
this
secretaries,
who
am
convinced at times really keep
government together; the
arrange the planes and accommodations in our no madic existence; the Secret Service; the pleasant White House
men who
switchboard operators; and those cheerful,
efficient
White
House
Among
police the
officers.
New Frontiersmen my relationship with Theo

I
dore C. Sorensen goes back the farthest and
owe him a
special tribute for long years of frank, honest, intelligent and frequent counsel in the mystic art of presidential politics and function.
more of my thanks: Lawrence F. Kenneth O'Brien, Ralph Dungan, O'Donnell, Pierre Salinger, Maj. Gen. Chester V. Clifton, McGeorge Bundy, Fred Hoiborn, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Jerome B. Wiesner, Rich ard Donahue, Myer Feldman, Richard N. Goodwin, Lee C. White, Andrew T. Hatcher, Walt Whitman Rostow, David F. Powers, Timothy J. Reardon, Mrs. Evelyn N. Lincoln, Letitia Baldrige, Pamela Turnure, Walter Heller, David E. Bell, Edward C. Welsh, Capt. Tazewell Shepard, Brig. Gen. Godto
And
these others
v &.
frey
J.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
McHugh, Henry Hall Wilson, Mike N. Manatos, Claude
Desautels, Frederick G. Button, Mrs. Lorraine Pearce, Carl
Kaysen, Samuel Belk, Michael Forrestal. Others beyond the bounds of the White House, both in and
out of government, who gave me special assistance include: Clark Clifford, Mr. and Mrs. Sargent Shriver, Gen. Bruce C.
Humphrey, John Seigenthaler, Edwin 0. Guthman, John Bailey, Charles James Symington,
Clarke,
ret.,
Senator Hubert
Roche, Robert Manning, James Greenfield, Paul B. Fay, Donald Wilson, James Rowe. To John Steele and Richard Clurman I owe much for
encouragement and help throughout this project. To my colleagues from whom I borrowed some facts a special bow:
their
Neil MacNeil, Loye Miller, Burt Meyers, Mrs. berlin, Charles J. V. Murphy, Jerry Hannifin.
the two devoted ladies
Anne ChamThe same to
who sped the manuscript through their Pearl Carroll and Mrs. Mary Vreeland. Mrs. typewriters, And finally to Simon Michael Bessie of Atheneum, my deep
appreciation for being incurably optimistic, pleasant and

helpful throughout this undertaking.
CONTENTS
ONE
Forming the
First
New Frontier
43
56
72
TWO
THREE
Days
President at Work
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
Commander in Chief
Something for the Boys
86
92
Home Notes
The Corps
Space Challenge
SEVEN
98
EIGHT
no
124
145
NINE
The Bay of Pigs

Bob Kennedy
Lift
TEN ELEVEN
from Above
to
156
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
Urge
Paris
Talk
160
175
191
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
Vienna
London and Home
202
Midsummer and Worry
208
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
The Wall
Troops
to Berlin
236
252
NINETEEN
Rest in Newport
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
Growing Confidence
259
272
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
A Way of Life A New Year

Crisis with Steel
284
291
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
Oxford, Mississippi
Blockade
323
The People Approve

Education in Economics
350
365
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
The Oval Office

Index
379 389
JOHN
F.
KENNEDY,
PRESIDENT
CHAPTER ONE
FORMING THE
FRONTIER
NEW
came streaming into Washington in January,
THEY
1963, the 534 living members of the 88th Congress (the 535th was elected after his death). The veterans,
wise in the fraternal rituals, eased themselves back into their
government-issue niches in society; the tenderfeet padded
through the elegant streets of Georgetown and the comfort able Chevy Chase neighborhoods, looking for housing that would suit their $22,500 annual salaries.
The spectacle of the 88th in its throes of self-creation was new in detail, yet in form it was as old as the Republic. As
each Congress becomes a full working body, each chamber is a hall of statesmen, every man's eyes glistening as the oratory soars while in the back corridors there is the soft splunk of
Kentucky bourbon into branch water and in the private hide aways, to which a startling portion of the Capitol is devoted, there is the splash of political blood. The law of the jungle applies there. And, of course, the mechanical systems which
provide power, food, transportation and tons of paper, the very life juice of the organism, collapse at the first whack of
the gavel.
The 88th was no different, even though it received the full midterm blessings of John F. Kennedy, 34th President of the United States of America, and a man often credited with pos sessing even more luck than that of the Irish. The House Republicans canvassed and promptly threw out their aging Chairman of Conference, Charles B. Hoeven,
67, Presbyterian,
Mason, Legionnaire
Iowa's own, cut
down
CHAPTER ONE
row
like a
R. Ford,
of hybrid corn at harvest. In his place went Gerald Jr., 50, former football star at the University of
Michigan, with two distinguished-service awards from the

Jaycees.
In the House kitchen on opening day a caldron of bean soup upset in the conveyor, and for a panicky moment, the first time since Uncle Joe Cannon in 1904 demanded bean the soup daily, patrons of the House restaurant couldn't order bean soup (there were those who contended that the seven gallons already consumed were enough to waterlog the
88th for
its
duration).
electric-bell system in the Senate (full and cor name: electronic audio-visual legislative call system) be fuddled its operator and he pressed the "vote" button when he should have pressed the "quorum call" button, and the
The new
rect
senators
poured
forth, scared to
first
be registered on the very wouldn't understand.
action
death that they would fail to and the folks back home
Joseph C. Duke, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms, simply wilted from the strain of starting the session, and he was carted off to
Doctors'
Hospital. And Maryland's Senator Glenn Beall, on the Senate floor in full fury, demanded that the standing crabcakes served in the Senate Dining Room no longer puny be called Maryland Crabcakes. "Patrons of our dinning room should be protected from deception. ... I want the world
to
(It
know
that those crabcakes are not
Maryland crabcakes."
was a bad
start in the congressional kitchens.)
Amid
this Gilbert
and Sullivan atmosphere, John Ken
nedy went
to the Hill.
third State of the
Union message
a sense of order,
it
14, 1963, he delivered his to the Congress. It injected gave the Congress a reason for being there.
On January
As Kennedy viewed it, the State of the Union in the next two years and beyond would depend more than ever on the Con
gress.
The
little
President
left
the southeast gate of the
White House a
past noon.
A fleet of motorcycle police formed a raucous
wedge up Independence Avenue, and the strung-out caravan of black Cadillacs and Mercurys took only seven minutes for the trip to the Hill. In the deep cushions of his limousine Kennedy rode with his wife, Jacqueline.
Forming the New Frontier
Two years
the
ago, as a
new
same
car,
and he had
the trip in president, he had taken fallen into silence, reading and re
a reading the phrases o his speech, typed, like pages from with been also had primer, in huge reading letters. Jackie
him
then, but so
had Theodore
C. Sorensen, with a shiny
New
still
Frontier
title
an adviser and
of Special Counsel to the President, but speech writer, the veteran of eight Ken
nedy years in the Senate; and Lawrence F. O'Brien, a Ken nedy political expert, vintage 1952, new caretaker of the Ken nedy legislative program. In January, 1963, Kennedy rode with more confidence in himself and the men around him, confidence born of two
years of
his lap
crisis.
The
message he carried in a leather folder on
would reflect it.
big car scarcely slowed as it turned sharply over the sidewalk at the House wing of the Capitol and pulled up to the side. (Two years earlier the curbs had been piled with
The
snow left over from the Inauguration Day blizzard and cold had lashed the Capitol Plaza. Now, there was no snow and
the sun
warmed the earth
to springlike temperatures.)
been, on his first journey to the Hill, overly selfconscious. He had stepped out of his car and been swept into the building down a corridor past the House Dining Room, where he looked in and felt obliged to wave at the congress men having coffee. He had met House Speaker Sam Rayburn in his office and hesitated. But Rayburn had known. He had gestured him to his own desk in the Speaker's office, and for a
He had
few minutes,
as they
awaited the
summons
to
go into the
House Chamber, Kennedy had worked at his speech.
The route was familiar this time: up in the small elevator and on around the Chamber to the Speaker's office, now the
preserve of John W. McCormack of Massachusetts. If a man who has been elected president does not quite seem to achieve the presidential image in the earlier occa
sions of his office taking, his appearance before a joint session of Congress washes away the final traces of the outside world.
1961. There is, perhaps, nothing more in governmental appearance than the Senate and House
It had, for
Kennedy in
meeting together, particularly when a president comes to as sess the state of the Union. The scene is indelible: the two
/?
CHAPTER O NE
and their outlines blur, and suddenly they become Congress; and added to this are the Cabinet, the foreign diplomatic corps, the Supreme Court, the military Chiefs of Staff and so many visitors in the the galleries that they must stand, scarcely breathing, along walls and must sit on the steps. By 1963 the scene had become familiar to the New Frontier, but it was still impressive, a re minder of this nation's government. The floor of the House chamber was a pool of muted grays, blues and blacks as the legislators swarmed in to take their places. There were splatters of sharper colors here and there, where the few women members sat. There was, of course, the announced and regimented entry of the other high officers. And then Jackie Kennedy came cautiously down the steps
great legislative bodies flow together
in the Executive Gallery. She smiled warmly as she paused for a moment at her seat on the aisle of the front row, to ac
knowledge the tribute from below and around her. Every man and woman had risen and applauded when she entered. From doorkeeper William (Fishbait) Miller then came the expected, the practiced but still stirring cry, "Mistah Speakah, the President of the United States." Two years previously John Kennedy had tried to look as solemn as a ^g-year-old man can look. He had not been quite successful. Whether in sheer pleasure from the moment or whether in plain amusement at seeing his former colleagues stand and applaud him as president, he had smiled as he walked down the aisle. Now his nature had grown more som ber. The lines around his eyes had deepened, erasing some of
his youthful look.
He gave a special nod to his old friends, but his eyes did not meet those of his brothers, Robert Francis Kennedy in the front row with the Cabinet, Edward Moore Kennedy at the side and near the back with the senators. In 1961 Bob Ken nedy had felt so self-conscious sitting between Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Postmaster General J. Ed ward Day that he had scarcely looked up and had applauded his brother ever so lightly. He seemed to feel a part of the ceremonies now. Those who watched the scene paid more at tention to the new Senator Kennedy. Bob Kennedy and his older brother were a familiar part of the landscape.
Forming the
New
Frontier
The four giant klieg lights for the the corners, and the President for the
like a
TV cameras blazed from

moment
looked more
idol playing the climactic role in a Hollywood spectacular than the leader of the free world. But it was all real. In his left hand Kennedy carried his message, the cor
its pages protruding from the folder. In January of 1961 he had brought everyone to earth within a few minutes with a sobering appraisal of the deep international trouble that faced this nation. It is doubtful
movie
ners of
that anyone
ized just
who had been in the chamber at that time real how chillingly accurate his address would prove. But now he talked in a quieter world. The focus of his mes
sage was on the need for tax reduction and reform to unfetter the economy and spark new growth, so that idle plants would
and wages would
again produce, the unemployed ranks would dwindle, profits swell and our wealth and our will, the very
preservatives of freedom in the world,
would not begin
to rot
away. "I can report to you," he told the Congress, "that the state of this old but youthful Union is good." (The words of 1961 had been: "Before my term has ended we shall have to test
and governed such as ours can endure. The outcome is by no means certain.") "But we cannot be satisfied to rest here. This is the side of the hill, not the top. To achieve these greater gains, one step, above
a nation organized
.
.
.
anew whether
the enactment this year of a substantial re duction and revision in federal income taxes/' (In his first
all, is
essential
message, though he had found the economy "disturbing," he had made only one fleeting reference to taxes.)
by $13.5 ion a year when fully in effect in three years. Reforms in the tax code which, by closing loopholes and shifting inequities, would reclaim $3.5 billion annually.
Slowly, precisely, Kennedy read his program: rates across the board that would reduce taxes
A cut in
tax
bil-
Congress was cool, but then from the start it had never given Kennedy ecstatic endorsement. For two years he had ar
gued and pressured and pleaded. He had made progress, but not as much as he wanted or even as much as many expected him to make. In "Turning to the world outside," he continued. ".
.
o
these past
CHAPTER ONE:
months we have reaffirmed the scientific and mili our efforts in tary superiority of freedom. We have doubled We have under future. in first the us of to assure being space,
taken the most far-reaching defense improvements in the
peacetime history of this country, and

the frontiers of freedom from
to the
Vietnam
to
we have maintained West Berlin. ."

. .
Listen, now, younger President, inheriting the leg in freedom 1961: "I feel I must inform the Congress acy of that our analyses over the last ten days make it clear that in each of the principal areas of crisis the tide of events has
."As been running out and time has not been our friend. he spoke, his jaw had thrust out; he had chopped the air with his impulsive right hand. His voice grew slightly hoarse. Now he spoke with more calm and more sense of the full meaning behind his message. That jabbing right hand was somewhat less evident and his right forefinger, which had drilled at every page in 1961, thumped down less often. His
.
seminar had been hard.

"I think these are
of peace
proud and memorable days in the cause and freedom," he said.

years ago, in the rear of the
assistants
Chamber, a cluster of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Harvard Kennedy's historian turned White House aide; Budget Director David E. Bell; Deputy Special Counsel Myer Feldman; Presidential
(Two
Assistant
of a Republican,
Ralph A. Dungan had attracted the attention who had spoken caustically: "All they need now is Eleanor Roosevelt to be den mother." Now, the assistants were inconspicuous among the congressmen; and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, to the sorrow of the nation, was
dead.)
"My friends, I close on a note of hope," the President said. "We are not lulled by the momentary calm of the sea or the
somewhat clearer skies above. We know the turbulence that lies below and the storms that are beyond the horizon this year. But now the winds of change appear to be blowing more strongly than ever, in the world of communism as well as our own. For 175 years we have sailed with those winds at our back, and with the tides of human freedom in our favor. We steer our ship with hope, as Thomas Jefferson said, leav
ing fear astern/
Forming the
New
Frontier
welcome those winds of change and we have every reason to believe that our tide is running strong. With thanks to Almighty God for seeing us through a peril ous passage, we ask his help anew in guiding the 'Good Ship
"Today we
still
Union/
"
He hurried back to the White House while the wires of the news services clacked out the prosaic facts of tax reduction and the words of hope, somehow not as arresting as the
words of warning of January, 1961: "Our problems are criti cal. The tide is unfavorable. The news will be worse before
better. And while hoping and working for the best, we ." should prepare ourselves for the worst. The Kennedy voice had held all attention then. His phrases had rolled into a stilled Chamber. They had been, as always, Kennedy phrases. He had sat by the hour going over the
it is
. .
drafts of his 1961 message, retooling the sentences, simplify ing the images. It was Kennedy who had added the blackest
Sunday before he had given it he had slumped in his chair in the mansion and furrowed his brow. He had wondered to his new Secretary of State Dean Rusk and to Sorensen what else needed to go into the talk which they had the tide of reviewed. He had been silent, then added, ". events has been running out ." And again he penciled on the sheets: "The news will be worse before it is better." (Later John Kennedy was to explain why he had so shaped his message. "Nobody knew what the missile age meant. All other estimates of our power had been based on old weapons, old ideas of our superiority. But now they could kill us as well
bits.
On
the
as
we could kill
had already become the months had sketched schizophrenic. Kennedy accurately that lay immediately ahead. But the joy of life in possessing the White House ran too deep for its new occupants to really sense how true his words would become.
For ten and a half weeks the Democratic blood had been rising. In that time John Kennedy formed his government. It was a gurgling infusion of life that was marshaled sometimes
The New
them/') Frontier in January of 1961
on a Georgetown doorstep, sometimes on the palm-lined patio of a cream stucco villa in Palm Beach that looks out to
CHAPTER ONE
the Atlantic Ocean,
and sometimes on the thick carpeting of the thirty-fourth-floor penthouse of New York's Carlyle Ho tel, with its wall of glass through which the occupants could
look south the length of Madison Avenue. In the incandescent acres of New York,
all
turned to peer
at that penthouse States of America
when
the President-elect of the United
was in residence. In the vast complex of
federal buildings that sprawls beside the Potomac bureau crats broke out in triplicate goose pimples every time the
Street, N.W., stepped out on his newsmen. In every foreign capital the men in power watched anxiously when Kennedy, in a knit sports shirt and khaki pants, scuffed along the Florida beach and squinted out beyond the gentle swells of the blue-
young owner of 3301
frigid doorstep to talk to
green ocean.
If
Kennedy was not nervous, the country was.

did not
yet
it
know him.
It
him.
The
official
margin of
It knew him, wanted him, yet it did not want victory over Richard Nixon was
112,881 votes out of a grand total of 68,838,565 certainly not that unwavering trumpet blast that the Kennedys had ex
pected.
Those who watched John Kennedy in these days felt that perhaps he was the first man in this nation's history to train for the presidency from the cradle. This was not a conscious
feeling or spoken
early years.
The
death of an older brother
by any of the participants in Kennedy's who was the fa
vored contender for political glory and the near-death of Ken nedy himself are elements in the story that cloud it. But there burned within the Kennedy family something that would not
stop until one of its members established himself as the first citizen of the land. John Kennedy, while still in short pants,
gazed on Plymouth Rock. Later, he was the only fourteenyear-old boy at Choate School to digest The New York Times each morning with breakfast. He consumed the vital history
books of our civilization. He watched the main actors on the world stage from inside his father's house, which often was near center. With his father's millions behind him he had few duties but those of self-improvement. He traveled the
globe, he
war, he ran successfully for Congress
went through Harvard, he fought bravely in the and then for the Senate
Forming the
New
Frontier
^ j
and, naturally, he became president. "No other president in history has been as well prepared for the job/* said his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, matter-offactly
one evening in his
New York office.
His son possessed a confidence equal to the tribute. In midDecember John Kennedy sat in his Georgetown drawing room before a glowing hearth and looked ahead. "Sure," he
said, "it's
a big job. But I don't know anybody who can better than I can. I'm going to be in it for four years. any It isn't going to be so bad. You've got time to think.
all
do
.
it
.
You
don't have
Senate
those people bothering you that you had in the besides, the pay is pretty good."
The building of a government is a pageant which comes with the regularity but fortunately not the frequency of the seasons. In the two and a half months between election and
inauguration, the President-elect sifted through the human resources of this nation. It was a frenzied time, filled with
speculation and anticipation and the wonderful flow of the story in the newspapers. There was joy for those who wanted the call and then heard it. There was disappointment for
many
of the faithful
who
couldn't be used the
way they
people jammed the cor ridors and tiny waiting rooms of the Democratic National Committee, and those who were anointed traveled to
thought they deserved to be.
The
Georgetown where the President-elect wanted to see them. His home had become the seat of the embryonic administra
tion.
Cabinet making came first. In the days after his victory Kennedy called some of his top advisers together, this time in the Palm Beach mansion of his father, where the President elect had gone for a brief rest.
sun around the swimming pool, played nine holes of golf and had dinner, and then Kennedy led a small band into a first-floor bedroom for a long night's work.
They
sat in the
Kennedy
tled
piled
up
back on them,
his legs stretched
pillows against the bed's headboard, set out over the covers. The
others ringed chairs around the bed. Kennedy glanced around him at the men who had scarcely had time for a good gasp of air before beginning the new task.
..
CHAPTER ONE
Naturally the family was represented. There was brother-in-
law Robert Sargent Shriver, tough, dedicated and tireless, now one of the chief recruiters for the new administration. There was shrewd, calm Larry O'Brien who in the campaign months
had talked soothingly to the grassroot politicians; who had fretted about "getting out the vote/' Also, there was Clark Clifford, a relative newcomer to the inner circle. He had been Harry Truman's White House counsel. He had been Senator Stuart Symington's friend and closest adviser when Symington sought the nomination which Kennedy won. He had also been John Kennedy's attorney when the senator, angered by Col umnist Drew Pearson's television charge that he had not writ
ten his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, forced a network correction of the statement. So skillfully had
handled the matter that Kennedy never forgot his Shortly after receiving the nomination Kennedy had phoned Clifford. "If the people elect me as president," he had
Clifford
talent.
said, "I don't
and
say,
want to wake up the morning after the election 'What do I do now?' " He asked Clifford to prepare a
blueprint for taking over the government. On election day Clifford was putting the finishing touches on the report,
and
that night Kennedy had phoned. "Better send that here/' said the President-elect. "It looks like we've won/'
up
memorandum now lay on the bed beside President-elect Kennedy. spoke seriously but, as he does so often, with a point of humor sticking through. "I want to
fifty-page
The
The
get the best men I can for these Cabinet jobs," he said. "I don't care if they are Democrats, Republicans or Igorots."
lasted four hours, a warning of the work A.M. the President-elect sighed wearily, a bit dis couraged after considering and rejecting dozens of names for the Cabinet. "At least," he said, "I thought this part of being
The meeting
i
ahead. At
president was going to be fun." Not many days later there was another meeting in the Ken nedy Palm Beach home. It began in the library, then shifted
There were three men Kennedy, Allen head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Richard Dulles,
to the poolside.
one of Dulles' deputies. On November 18 John Kennedy learned about the plans for training Cuban exiles for possible action against Fidel Castro. Dulles and Bissell,
Bissell, Jr.,
with charts and papers, poured out the details to a surprised Kennedy. This was the first time he learned that this govern ment was giving military training to Cuban refugees. 1
Kennedy found both Republicans and Democrats for his Cabinet. The appointments were announced from the deep
freeze front doorstoop in
Georgetown.
Icicles
teelly sagging eaves of the red brick house. banked street the nation watched through
clung to the gen From the snow-
TV
eyes as the
President-elect
ducked in
and
out, his breath forming white
selected his men men from in from politics and, of course, from the family. The icicles did not melt. Georgetown and Washing ton were in the heart of one of the worst winters of the cen tury. Sometimes, when the sun shone, the crystal drops of water splashed on the shoulders of the men below, But the
steam clouds.
dustry,
One by one he
labor,
from
Kennedy house things were cozy. There was the constant gurgle of hot coffee and tea. Wood fires cast their warming flicker across the rooms. Scarcely an hour went by
without a
cold stayed. Inside the
want
new person's arriving. For those Kennedy did not identified there was an alley entrance at the rear, and many of the interviewees were spirited in that way.
Out
front, the
growing collection of newsmen shufHed and to keep warm. NBC rented a com plete house across the street. William H. Lawrence, of The New York Times, dug up a huge sheepskin coat and lamb's wool hat which he had purchased while on assignment in Bul
stamped on the sidewalk
garia.
With
the astrakhan
jammed
to his ears
and the coat
at
ankle length he could battle the ten-degree blasts. Kennedy once pointed at the correspondent in his weird attire and an
nounced:
of government making had been cold, it had been rewarding. A government hierarchy was formed. And it was formed under the singular circum stances of seeking ability first, then political loyalty. If the
1 In his book, Six Crises, published in the spring of 1962, Richard Nixon accused Kennedy of having been told of the Cuban invasion plans in the cour tesy intelligence briefings Kennedy received as a candidate, then using this privileged information in planning his criticism of Nixon's own Cuban stand. Dulles then publicly stated that he had not told Kennedy of Cuban plans un til November 18, 1960. He also said that he felt the Nixon statement was the result of a misunderstanding.
"He is from Tass." Though the vigil for the news
CHAPTER O NE
two were happily combined, it was a double bull's-eye; but such was not always the case. Luther H. Hodges, the Kennedy nominee for Secretary of Commerce, with his white hair and twinkly eyes looked and acted like (and was) a grandfather. Stewart L. Udall, the Ari zona congressman with a crew cut, the man who had stolen
the Arizona delegation for Kennedy while the sedentary op position scoffed at the idea, was nominated for Secretary of
the Interior.
In mid-December the Ford Motor

ert S.
Company gave up Rob
McNainara,
its
mara announcement out of a Ford plant. A Mark V Lincoln Continental crunched through the snow to the curb. The hatless McNamara jumped out. His black shoes were flawlessly shined. Each hair on his head seemed to have been plastered by a pattern, so that none was out of line. McNamara stepped into the Kennedy drawing room, leaving behind him an aide in his car, motor running, car phone open to the Ford Washington office, which, in turn, had a phone open to Ford in Detroit, which was to re
lay the
president of one month. The McNaon the Georgetown doorstoop was right
wife in
McNamara Ann Arbor.
acceptance of a
New
Frontier job to his
In contrast was the long agony of the President-elect's
own
brother, Robert F. Kennedy, in making up his mind to accept the nomination of Attorney General. "Bobby's the best man I can get," muttered John Kennedy one day riding up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol. "But that family criticism is the most sensitive there is. We'll see." For two weeks Bob Kennedy had agonized over the job. "This is kind of a turning point in my life," he told a friend. "I've got to decide what I'm going to do." In a sense Robert Kennedy had worked for his brother all his life. As Senator John McClellan's chief rackets investiga tor, he had helped further brother Jack's presidential ambi tions almost as much as he had enhanced his own reputation. Done with that, Bob became the master strategist for the Ken nedy conquest of the Democratic nomination. Then the
younger Kennedy moved in as campaign manager for the nominee. Always, it seemed, the shadow of Jack Kennedy covered Bob.
New
said.
situation did not bother Joe Kennedy. Kibitzing from York, he thought the hesitation ridiculous. "Now if Bobby will just go ahead, well really be in good shape/ he
5
The
probably as responsible as any eventually became Attorney Gen eral. Not only did the father think that Bob should be near the new President but he felt Bob had earned the job by help
Joe Kennedy was, in

else that
fact,
one
Bob Kennedy
ing his brother win the election. When at first the Kennedy brothers were reluctant to consider the appointment, it was Joe Kennedy who kept the pressure on.
one December Tuesday, Bob had decided to accept, still worried. Head down, he walked the wintry streets, first to visit retiring Attorney General Bill Rogers. For half an hour they discussed the job. Bob dropped by to see his friend J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI. This old warrior felt that the war on crime was languishing and that there was a lot the new administration could do. Eleven blocks further on he sat down for lunch with Su preme Court Justice William O. Douglas, with whom he had traveled through Russia in 1955. They talked about all the but he
possibilities: the Massachusetts governorship, the Senate, the
On
Attorney General's job, Bob's moving to Maryland in hopes of positioning himself for elective office. Douglas did not like the idea of the Cabinet appointment. Next day Bob Kennedy phoned his brother that he had de cided against the job. Jack Kennedy wouldn't take that an
swer and insisted on having breakfast with him the following morning. Seventy minutes over grapefruit, eggs and coffee changed the scene. Bob Kennedy accepted. At week's end the announcement came, but not before
some Kennedy
wit.
From
his shabby, green-carpeted office at
Democratic National Committee headquarters, the younger brother called the elder just a few hours before the an nouncement was to be made. "When you make the announce ment," he chuckled, "why don't you say, 'I know he is my " 2 brother, but I need him/
2 In June, 1958, when Eisenhower's assistant, Sherman Adams, was ac cused of improperly accepting favors from Boston industrialist Bernard Goldfine, Ike defended Adams in a press conference. "I personally like Governor Adams. I admire his abilities. I respect him because of his personal and offi-
I?
CHAPTER ONE:
pleased with handiwork. view its back to occasionally stepped Ted Sorensen glowed over the Kennedy Cabinet. "There are two things about this Cabinet/' he said. "First, these men
itself. It
The Kennedy team was becoming immensely
are
all sacrificing to
come
to
Washington. They are coming
because they feel the same way as John Kennedy, that the country needs to move again. Second, they are all innovators
in one
way or
another.
Though
they
may be
cautious
and
careful, they are not afraid to try new things. Hodges onstrated it in North Carolina when he was governor.
dem
Dean
afraid to express other views when everybody was oriented toward Europe in foreign policy. McNamara
Rusk wasn't
showed
it
with the Falcon."
through his list of possibilities for Secretary of State, considered by the pundits of the press to be the most important of the Cabinet posts, he brushed
aside, after a period of inner struggle, Arkansas' prosegregationist Senator J. William Fulbright, former French and Ger
When John Kennedy sorted
man Ambassador David

as the
K. E. Bruce
and the two-time
dential loser Adlai Stevenson.
One name continued
presi to shine
Kennedys viewed
it
of
Dean Rusk, President
from a thousand angles. It was that of the Rockefeller Foundation. For
days it was only a name, as they poked and prodded to find the weaknesses. But the name, which had first been recom
mended by former Secretary of State Dean Acheson and for mer Secretary of Defense Robert A. Lovett, endured. Ken nedy called Rusk to his Georgetown home for a view in the
flesh.
The meeting was

eral terms
brief and Kennedy, talked only in gen about foreign relations, never hinting that he
to offer Rusk the job as Secretary of State. When the half-hour was up, Rusk ducked out, convinced he was not in the running. To reporters who saw him hurry away that day
wanted
he looked bewildered, Kennedy looked embarrassed. Rusk

cial integrity. I need him. Admitting the lack of that careful prudence in this incident ... I believe with my whole heart that he is an invaluable public servant doing a difficult job- efficiently, honestly and tirelessly." 3 While an executive at the Ford Motor McNamara an
Company, played important role in bringing out the highly successful Falcon, Ford's compact car. Though he did not originate the idea, he is credited by Henry Ford II, chairman of the board, with handling the "Falcon project" from its infancy.
Forming the
New
Frontier
-i
was put far

State.
down on
the
list
of possibilities for Secretary of
But he was the man. Son of a poor Georgia cotton farmer, he had become a Rhodes scholar, a political-science professor at California's Mills College. During World War II he had served in the wartime General Staff Office, moved with
George Marshall into the State Department
as
a key aide,
helped design the Japanese peace treaty, played a part in and the Marshall Plan to life. John Ken bringing
NATO
nedy studied him and his record closely and decided he liked what he saw. On a Saturday night he put in a call to the Rusk home in Scarsdale, New York, and told the balding scholar that he wanted him for Secretary of State. With a battered suitcase, Dean Rusk next day boarded a plane bound for Florida. By Monday he was headed for a new life. There was dissent about the Cabinet. But it was generally mild. A Democrat who once had been in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt watched in fascination. The flam boyant memories of F.D.R. still lingered. "They're a con servative bunch/' he observed about the new Cabinet men. "Too much for me. They seem like good organization men modern men. They are not a very colorful group. I liked the colorful boys. We'll have to get our color up on Capitol
Hill."
Still,
even
this
man
praise for the

ing.
way John Kennedy had worked
could not squelch a deeply felt bit of at Cabinet mak
"On
that
some of
the whole, though," he added, almost admitting his thoughts were from a different era, "it's a
pretty good Cabinet. tent technicians."
They
are world-oriented men,
compe
At a dinner party a Washington hostess, who had appre hensively watched John Kennedy make out her social register for the next four years, leaned close to Clark Clifford and ad
mitted, "This Cabinet sure doesn't have
Clifford, still helping
much
glamour."
that this was exactly
Kennedy make the selections, replied the way he preferred it. "I don't want
any mercurial, flashy, brilliant men in there," he said. "I want men who can make things run right, men who can carry
out the orders of the boss."
Task
forces
had been assigned
to virtually every
major
CHAPTER ONE:
domestic and foreign problem Kennedy would face. Their missions were to come up with recommendations for policies
and programs. But while the task forces, many of them draw of the country, ing their brain power from the universities labored in silence, the great manhunt went on.
was a methodical, exhaustive search. Sarge Shriver and Larry O'Brien were the nominal heads. But every man close
It
to
Kennedy worked
at
it
as well
gan, Press Secretary Pierre E. For the impatient newsmen, the job of forming a Cabinet seemed to lag. It was because Kennedy spared no effort in
Bob Kennedy, Ralph DunG. Salinger, Ted Sorensen.
when finding out about his prospects. Eight years before, same the process, Dwight Eisenhower was going through
there
had been
less deliberation.
Some
of the Cabinet pros
E. Dewey's unfulfilled pects were holdovers from Thomas White House dreams. It was a Cabinet dictated largely by the Republican party, which was separate from Dwight Ei senhower. Contrarily, John Kennedy was the Democratic
party.
When the Kennedy scouts scoured

David
as far
the archives for notes
on
Bell, proposed for
away
Budget Director, they made contact as Pakistan, where Bell had served for four years
adviser.
lectures, his
as
an economic
Dean Rusk's
cles
memorandums,
his written arti
were collected by Shriver and brought around to the Kennedy Georgetown drawing room. The President-elect, a great admirer of writing style, read them all.
McNamara's Republican name had recurred in the Ken nedy files since the summer before the election. Shriver had hoped to get him on his group of businessmen-for-Kennedy, but he had not succeeded. He had not forgotten the name,
however.
One of the most satisfying characteristics Kennedy found in McNamara was his unhesitating decision to give up his
some three to four job, thus to forego in the next years million dollars of profits. Each question Kennedy asked got a precise answer. "McNamara was decisive and incisive," said
Ford
Sarge Shriver. "That's what Jack liked." Few of the grave and complex defense questions were brought up in detail. Kennedy was taking the measure of the
Forming the
New
Frontier
man. The McNamara outlook and manner were more im portant. The greatest need in the Pentagon, as Kennedy viewed it, was to straighten out the organizational mess, to get it running efficiently. The broad defense policy questions were to be decided in the White House. McNamara did not hesitate on the time he promised to spend in Washington. He wanted to come for four years, for six, for eight, whatever Kennedy said. And finally McNamara
clinched his appointment when Bob Kennedy cautiously suggested that there were perfectly proper ways for a man who must divest himself of great amounts of stock to keep it
in the family.
McNamara
about
it,
said no, flatly.
not
feel right
nor would Ford.
He said he would He would come to
Washington without his Ford holdings.
Not every interview went this way, however. From Mis came Fred V. Heinkel, president of the militant Mis souri Farmers Union, and high on the Kennedy list of pros
souri pects for Secretary of Agriculture. For this post Kennedy wanted a man who understood the vexing surplus problem and would have the guts to try to solve it. Heinkel proved in twenty short minutes not to be that man. At first Jack Ken nedy questioned him and decided that he did not have the right answers to the farm problem. Unbelieving, the Presi dent-elect left the room, asked Bob Kennedy to go in and see. Bob Kennedy asked the fundamental questions. How could surplus crops now in storage and costing this government a million dollars a day to store be cut down? Heinkel logically suggested that more of them be sent overseas. But what about the foreign markets, our allies, what effect would such action have on world prices? Heinkel admitted he had no answer for this but felt that surely somebody in the Agriculture De partment could solve that end of it. Suddenly Minnesota's Governor Orville Freeman went way up on the Kennedy tote board for Secretary of Agriculture. Freeman was no farm ex pert. But he was a hard-working man who perhaps would make more sense than the farm experts. In two days Freeman had been summoned to Washington on a special plane and given the Kennedy anointment under the Georgetown porch
light at 7 P.M.
While the hard core around Kennedy labored over the
<>Q
CHAPTER ONE
members
of the
prospective
New
Frontier, there was little
excitement of the coming January creep in. But when the Cabinet was formed, much of the tension drained away and the frantic movement of the Kennedyites
let the
time to
slowed. Then, the thought of the inheritance that was to be theirs on January 20 began to dawn on them.
Sometimes
Room,
beef.
late at night in the Mayflower Hotel's Rib a block and a half from Democratic National just
Committee headquarters, they would
talk
about
it
over roast
Sometimes in Billy Martin's Carriage House, a George town restaurant, just two blocks up N Street from the Ken nedy home, the dreams of the New Frontier would be ex changed over lunch. And one evening in early December, as winter darkness came on, Joseph P. Kennedy, 72, the father of the President elect of the United States, put on his black homburg and left
his unobtrusive ninth-floor office in the
Grand Central Build
ing that looks north
up New York's Park Avenue.
He walked unnoticed the block and a half to the grimy 277 Park Avenue apartment house, wound his way through the damp walkways that border the inside court to House
Number
eighth
10,
and then quietly he went
to his
apartment on the
long years of eco
floor.
On
this
day Joe Kennedy,
who over
fifty
nomic combat had amassed a fortune said to be more than $250 million, was more mellow than his Wall Street com petitors had ever given him credit for being. His mind was on January 20, when his second son would be sworn in as the 34th President of this republic. Not since Ulysses Grant had
a president entered
since
office
John Quincy Adams had
with both of his parents living. Not there been one with a more in
fluential living father.
Joe Kennedy marched across the green carpeting of his apartment, a place of such limited size and modest furnish ings that one would hardly expect the possessor to be a man
who owned
amounts of the world's real estate. He rum and soon came out with what he sought. maged Then Joe Kennedy slipped on his long tails and then his cut away coat. He had not had them on for twenty-two years,
vast
in his closet
since he had left his post in London as this nation's ambassa dor to Britain. He gave a satisfied glance at himself in the mirror no alterations were necessary. To himself he checked over the schedule. He would wear the cutaway for
ral balls.
the inauguration, probably wear the tails for the big inaugu However, he would reserve judgment on that. If
the other men did not wear
tails, he certainly was not going to. in life his At this moment Joe Kennedy, his face a healthy stood pink, his eyes with much of the same old flash in them,
six feet tall
and weighed
just 188 pounds, the
same
as
he had
in 192
when he checked himself out in Hot Springs.
been an elusive man, Joe Kennedy. Throughout the campaign for the presidency he had remained in the back
ground. Not even when Kennedy stood in the fading light of a Los Angeles evening and told the Democratic faithful in the Coliseum that he would" carry their banner to victory had Joe Kennedy been present. He had flown from the seclusion of the rented home of Marion Davies to New York.
since the victory.
He had
Joe Kennedy had edged out into public view a bit more The critics howled at the sight of him. In
deed, they said, Joe was the real brains and power behind the new president, Joe would sit in his home in Hyannis Port,
Massachusetts, or Palm Beach, Florida, or Antibes, France, and pull the strings. But the critics, at least for the moment, were wrong. Joe
Kennedy was allowing himself the

pride.
rare privilege of fatherly
Over the phone one day he
how
it feels
to
said to me: "Hell, I don't know be the father of a president. These people all
I
ask me. I get letters saying how proud I must be. Of course am. But I don't feel any different. I don't know how it feels."
The bluff didn't

late
one evening,
work. In that dim little office of his he sat the talking. He was soon to go to dinner at
of the
new restaurant, The Forum

for a
Twelve
Caesars.
But
just
few minutes he felt something.
"Jack doesn't belong any more to just a family. He belongs to the country. That's probably the saddest thing about all this. The family can be there. But there is not much they can
do sometimes for the President of the United States. "I am more aware now than I've ever been of the
terrific
22
problems that
CHAPTER ONE:
this country faces/' the Kennedy patriarch con tinued, thinking back over his days with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. "In 1932 we only faced an economic problem.
Now we
He
an economic problem, a farm problem, a de fense problem there isn't one phase of government that isn't faced with an immense problem."
face
told his son that all the time,
Joe recalled. "I'd
say, 'In
your pursuit of this job you will be aware of the fact the problems now are the most difficult ever seen.' Do you know
his
answer to me? He'd say, 'Dad, for two thousand years every generation, or most generations, have been faced with the most terrible problems ever seen. They all have been
solved by
can't we?'
humans with God's

"
failed, said
help. If they can
do
it,
why
that the President-elect
Joe Kennedy, in the only assignment had given him so far. That was to take a month and come up with the ideal name for Secretary
He had
of the Treasury.
"When
Jack called and asked
me
to give
him the name,
I said, 'I can't.'
"My life won't change much," he mused, glancing out over the darkening city. "I have the notion I'd like to go abroad and stay a little longer than I should but probably not."
He had
resigned himself with
mock grumpiness
to.
to
run
ning the Kennedy fortune. "I have
There's not a
member
done anything here

interest
of the family interested in the business. for three years.

.
None
. .
of
them have
Business doesn't
me either,
that's for sure. I
don't give a tinker's
damn
about it." His son was the interest right then, and he turned the con versation back to him. "As a nation we have become too soft. Jack's right. We have got to get moving. Jack understands
this. If
we
lose the brass ring this time,

it.
get another chance at
Jack
is
are never going to the fellow who will give
we
his life to this country." Looking across his battered old desk
with the black leather
top, his
mother comes over
drifted a bit. "Jack still writes a letter to his about the same way he wrote at Choate. And when he
to use the apartment, to
mind
happen
he still takes my socks if I have some new ones around." Whenever he could, Joe Kennedy watched the New Fron-
%3
tier progress
on TV. One day when the
President-elect
went
to see Eisenhower, Joe sat before the screen with Charles F. Spaulding, a Choate roommate of Jack Kennedy's. As he
watched, Joe Kennedy was
silent.
ding and
day/'
said,
"He
really looks
more
Finally he turned to Spaul like a president every
The Kennedy
no more
person of John
style
was becoming evident.
And
there was
interesting exercise than assault
on the unlikely
J. Rooney, a short, balding congressman from Brooklyn. This man was chairman of the appropria tions subcommittee for the departments of State, Justice, the Judiciary and related agencies. Rooney was the scourge of diplomats, the terror of the United States Information
Agency. He alone, almost, decided if they got their budgets. And he had an uncanny knack of finding misspent funds. He once referred to the skimpy entertainment allowances of
our diplomats as "booze allowances/' His objective was to keep them down. The President-elect knew a little about diplomatic life. He had spent the crucial years beside his father in the United States embassy in London. In his youthful Continental wan derings he was lodged and fed at the embassies because of
his father's standing in the fraternity. As Kennedy stumped his way around this nation seeking votes, he seldom missed a chance to cry for reform in the
cre
diplomatic machinery. His main plea was to replace medio and bad diplomats with men chosen only for their ability,
not for their contributions to the party, a system long used by both political parties. To do this Jack Kennedy realized as does everyone who has been confronted by this problem
he would have
to see to
it
that the nonmillionaires sent to
major foreign embassies could get increased allowances. It cost the diplomats who went to the large embassies as
much
$100,000 annually out of their pockets to run them properly. Kennedy did not oppose letting the wealthy men pay. But he did oppose the idea of having to assign wealthy
as
men to these jobs. He already had promised John Kenneth
Galbraith, a
Har
vard economics professor, the ambassadorship to India.
He
CHAPTER ONE:
was considering Charles E. (Chip) Bohlen, a career diplo mat, as the man for Paris. Neither had a fortune. But there loomed immediately on the horizon of the New
Frontier an obstacle
John J. Rooney.
Just a few days before Christmas,
Rooney came
puffing
back to Brooklyn from an "inspection trip" of Latin Ameri can embassies, and his phone was ringing. It was the Vice
President-elect,
Lyndon
B. Johnson. "John,"
came
that fa
miliar drawl, "the President-elect
would
like to see
you down
in Palm Beach next week. Can you make it?" Of course Rooney could. Lyndon reported back to his boss that Rooney would be there on schedule. As a cover for this venture, Kennedy and
Oklahoma's Senator Robert S. Kerr, soon to take Lyndon's place as chairman of the Senate Astronautics and Space Committee. The excuse for the meet ing would be space. From nearby Hobe Sound, Doug Dillon was summoned to add more prestige. Rooney arrived in his gray fedora and black suit. He put up at the Palm Beach Towers Hotel, as all the visitors and
Johnson planned
to bring in
staff
did during these southern missions. Apparently Rooney's
adequate. He immediately sought out the Keyboard Lounge, the hotel's bar, and informed the
own booze allowance was
journalists who wanted to listen that his opinion of the State Department had not gone up. His lecture lasted until 4 A.M. Next morning one of Kennedy's prettiest secretaries met the Brooklyn congressman at the hotel and drove him out to the Kennedy villa shortly before lunch. He walked ad miringly beside the attractive girl as she went through the huge oak doors, down the long arcade lined with poinsettia plants and across the patio where the news conferences were
being held. She pointed out these landmarks to Rooney as

she went. Since there were
guide hurried
stiffly
off to find at least
no Kennedys in sight, the girl one. Rooney sat a little
in the library alone, but soon Douglas Dillon arrived and then Lyndon Johnson, and Bob Kerr thundered into town on Lyndon's Convair, the "Lucy B./' named for his
eldest daughter.
When
the President-elect arrived, the
men
still
talked business,
lunched, then
moved
to the living
room,
inundated with
Forming the
New
Frontier
<>K
charming Christinas debris a new glistening leather was under the tree, stockings embroidered "Grandpa/' "Grandma/' "Mommie/' "Daddy/' "Caroline/' and "Miss
saddle
Shaw"
the fireplace. The great windows on the back of the house looked out to sea, and the surf rolled
still
hung over
easily in against the sea wall.
They moved
to the patio
and
talked
talks.
some more. Joe Kennedy was around but not in on the So was Caroline, wrestling with some of her Christmas
and frank.
presents. The atmosphere was informal, friendly Even a Brooklyn boy was impressed.
Kennedy's pitch was general. He did not want legislation he sought altering the current diplomatic machinery. What were assurances that if he named the men he wanted to key
Rooney would allow them enough money to run a first-class embassy. Rooney was not easily persuaded. His
embassies,
re opinion of many of the State Department career types mained unchanged. But Rooney and Kennedy began to come
together when the President-elect agreed fully that there was waste in some of the embassies, too many people who were
not good enough in others. Kennedy,
who showed Rooney his
did not sug special task force report on embassy difficulties, From the needed. was of amount a that money gest specific
Brooklyn congressman came one concession he would do all he could to make it easy for qualified men whom Kennedy appointed who did not have the necessary funds. If not totally satisfactory, it was a beginning for John Kennedy. The day was not ended yet, however. Next on the agenda was a golf game at the Palm Beach Country Club, and Rooney was invited to come along. He declined to play be
cause he had not
swung a club since he was fifteen years old. But he did enjoy the company. Joe Kennedy joined the group, and in high humor the five men headed down the fairway. John Rooney may be the only scorekeeper that the Palm Beach Country Club has had in a gray fedora and black suit. He padded about the course, keeping an accurate count, and later he upheld presidential secrecy. "That's a classified docu ment/' he told reporters, referring to the score card. Rooney stayed for dinner, and at some time during his two
days in Florida, Jacqueline
Kennedy greeted him warmly. He was even granted a peek at tiny John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr.
og
CHAPTER ONE:
7
Rooney's admiration for the tike was expressed candidly later. "I think he looked like a hell of a little baby/ said the congressman. There was another golf game with Rooney as
the delighted scorekeeper and more talk with the President elect. When he faced the reporters before flying back north,
Rooney cautiously admitted that he would be in favor of some slight increase in the allowances, depending on which embassy and for which ambassador.
there a change of heart? Maybe a little softening around the edges. Back in his hotel room, Rooney phoned his
wife. "Yeah,"
Was
the baby.
he said, "I saw 'em all ." 4 They were all there.
.
.
Jackie, Caroline
and
For Jackie Kennedy these weeks were as quiet as they could be, living as she did in the maelstrom. She was pregnant dur ing her husband's campaign, and she had wisely avoided any tiring appearances. She spent many hours reading and think ing about the White House and how her family would live there. She was determined that somehow her children were to be shielded from the harsh public glare that by necessity her husband, and less frequently herself, must live in. She
wanted to make the White House genuinely the nation's home. She wanted it to reflect more accurately its early heritage and she wanted it to be a living museum, a place where parents and their children could come and see and
also
first
sense the long parade of history.
On
somehow
Thanksgiving Day, November 24, the Kennedys had stolen a relatively quiet time for themselves and a
few friends. They stayed in Georgetown, ate leisurely and

talked of their plans for living and for governing. Though the baby was not due for another month, Jackie was being
extremely careful. She had lost two others. She seemed in fine condition that evening as Kennedy left Georgetown to fly to
Palm Beach
to
resume building his government, by choice

left
away from frantic Washington. Three hours after Kennedy

4
Washington, an ambu-
Kennedy made even more progress with Rooney when in 1962 the Demo on the President's urging gave incumbent New York Congressman Victor Anfuso a New York municipal judgeship, thus conveniently eliminating one opponent for Rooney, who had been put into a new district with Anfuso
cratic party
for the 1962 election.
Forming the
New
Frontier
OH
lance was on its way to the Kennedy home. Jackie sat in her bedroom quietly and asked her obstetrician, Dr. John W*
Walsh, "Will
I lose
my baby?"
As the Kennedy Convair, the "Caroline," taxied up the ramp in West Palm Beach, the word was radioed that an emergency phone call waited for the President-elect. Kennedy was told that his wife had been taken to the hospital and as he hurried off the plane to the waiting phone, he turned and said, "We'll be going right back." For the trip back to Washington, Kennedy got aboard the bigger, faster DC-6 which was flying the press corps. Some
thirty
minutes after the plane took
off,
Kennedy moved
to the
few minutes after cabin and put on the radio earphones. i A.M. Salinger came back and told reporters, "We have just
been advised that Mrs. Kennedy has given birth to a baby boy. Both mother and son are doing well." The newsmen ap
plauded wildly. John, Jr., came by Caesarean section, which meant that there was a long pull back to full strength for Jackie Kennedy. She spent the weeks before inauguration as quietly as possi
ble in the Florida sunshine.
of the world.
pleasant.
Kennedy could listen with only half an ear to the sounds But even in limited amounts, they were not
rifle fire
There was the crackle of

the road from Vientiane to
Luang
in early January along Prabang in faraway Laos.
Soviet Ilyushin-i4 transports daily roared over the jungle dropped supplies to the communist guerrillas.
and
In the Kremlin, Nikita Khrushchev stood before his

rades and delivered a speech which
com
John Kennedy would as as he would study diligently any document that year. "Comrades," said the Soviet Premier, "we live at a splendid time: communism has become the invincible force of our
country.
communism depend to an our will, unity, our foresight and resolve. Through their struggle and their labor, communists, the working class, will attain the great goals of communism on earth. Men of the future, communists of the next genera
further successes of
The
enormous degree on our
tion will envy us."
ô
Technically
it
CHAPTER ONE:
was
still Dwight Eisenhower's worry. Ken to associate himself with any ac overtures nedy rejected tions of the old administration. When General Wilton B.
all
informed Kennedy that the (Jerry) Persons, Ike's assistant, United States planned to break diplomatic relations with
Cuba, the President-elect remained silent. Again, when the Frontier was asked if it wanted to join a European mis sion headed by Secretary of the Treasury Robert B. Ander
New
flow of gold,
viser,
lic
son to appeal for help in stemming this country's disturbing Kennedy politely said no. Both he and his ad
Clark Clifford,
felt
that
it
was unwise to make any pub
policy declarations before they
had the actual power of

Hill, Secretary of State
office.
At a
closed-door hearing
on Capitol
Christian A. Herter
made
his final report to the Senate
For
eign Relations Committee, and Tennessee's Senator Albert Gore best summed it up when he emerged shaking his head:
"It wasn't a very encouraging review." Fidel Castro new tanks and artillery in the streets of Havana,
paraded
Russians renewed their offensive to
and the undermine the United
Nations
efforts to solve the
Congo problem.
The Kennedy
itch set in as inauguration time approached.
where he could work in the up town Carlyle Hotel, nearer Washington but still out of its ad
flew north to
He
New York,
miring embrace. The public clamored for a look at its hero. Police held the crowds back outside the entrance of the staid hotel. Assistant Hotel Manager Gustav Person assured everyone that the ho tel was delighted to have the President-elect as a guest. He admitted that the regular patrons had had to make a few ad justments, however.
a great distinction/' sighed one elderly woman. "But those horrid men." She gave a limp wave at the fifty or so re
"It's
porters
and photographers encamped in the lobby,
all
wear
ing orange badges entitling
them
to the privilege of sitting
on the lobby floor
to wait.
press blocked the narrow hotel passageways, domi nated the elevators. When they didn't tie everything up, the
visiting politicians did.
The
"He's leaving tonight, thank goodness," said one elevator
OQ
operator. Then he paused and saddened. "But he's coming back Sunday." Newsmen shucked their heavy overcoats and piled them in the corners of the lobby. The heap got so big that one ho
tel
guest suggested, "It looks like a
rummage
sale."
Yet things were even worse in the fifteenth-floor quarters

of
News
Secretary Salinger,
licity
man and unemployed
bedroom
target of every pub in the city. In his tworeporter suite there was a United Press International news
by now the
its steady rhythm. Salinger's customary in were scattered cigars profusion on the tables, and the halfbottles and scotch marked the room as a of bourbon emptied for the haven wandering press. Two frantic secretaries tried to maintain sanity and still keep on working, a nearly impos
ticker that beat out
sible task.
high-water mark was reached when actors Frank Sina and Peter Lawford came in to see Salinger about their role in the inaugural fund-raising gala. They were early and, as is
tra
The
his habit, Salinger
was
late.
Frankie
sat rather
glumly in the
corner (without his hairpiece) and Lawford paced the floor. The phone jangled incessantly, the two secretaries huddled
on sandwiches, lunch hour having two hours passed ago. Economist Dr. Walter W. Heller, new head of the Council of Economic Advisers, came in and staked out a portion of the living room away from Sinatra and Lawford. A journalist buzzed and entered, was shoved into the bedroom with the news ticker. "I think you're too busy," ventured Lawford. He began to answer the door for the girls. Sinatra sat and stared at Heller. A repairman bus tled through to adjust the news machine. A phone caller wanted to know if the President-elect would autograph a base ball, and another one wanted money to get her son home on leave from the service. At some time during this day Xavier Cugat came around,
in a far corner gnawing
bearing a huge painting by himself that was a caricature of the coming inauguration and included such people as Fidel
Castro,
Gamal
Nasser, Nikita Khrushchev, Richard Nixon,
Lodge, all blended into one gay landscape around the inaugural stand. Two composers with a "New Frontiers" march lumbered
Harry Truman and Henry Cabot
OQ
CHAPTER ONE:
through the door with a portable phonograph and a record ing of an army chorus singing the piece. Salinger took them to the bedroom, and for five minutes all other sound was
drowned
vail,
fail,
in baritone voices:
opening New Frontiers. opening New Frontiers. America, America, land of the
"Our country's spirit With trust in God we
will pre shall not
pioneers."
teeth.
"Great, great," said Salinger, cigar clamped grimly in his He gently pushed the musicians from the room. "Here,
give these reporters copies of the music. In fact, they can have
mine."
This was the music of new government, the discordant but wonderful sounds of the great democracy getting ready for
another change of
life.
Kennedy task-force reports rolled in. From Senator Paul H. Douglas came a volume on depressed areas. Purdue Univer sity's Frederick Hovde brought around a massive proposal for education, envisioning some $9 billion of federal money to be spent over four and a half years. Adolf Berle's docu ment on Latin America was declared secret because of its
delicate suggestions dealing with filtration in other Latin areas.
Cuba and communist
in
Space, Health and Social Security, International Service (Peace Corps), Africa, Disarmament,
Youth Foreign Eco

State
nomic
Policy, U. S. Information Agency,
Department of
the reports were framed to a large degree by liberals and by academicians, who are mostly liberals. There were no
limits set
on
these mental exercises.
Thus
their tone
was
naturally liberal. Their ultimate use was questionable from the beginning. They brought out ideas, they united men in
the
Kennedy
intellectualism
cause, they gave the which Kennedy liked.
New
Frontier a patina of
But
just
how would
man? Even
they affect
Kennedy?
Who
makes policy
for this
at this early stage those who had been with the President elect knew that to trace the use of this mass of ideas would
be virtually impossible.
thorough.
The Kennedy
digestive process
is
An
idea rarely comes out the
way
it
goes
in.
The
was misleading. Still, from these policy essays would come a foundation of ideas on which Kennedy would
liberal cast
build his
first
year's legislative
program.
Forming the
New
Frontier
p j
The White House press corps, transferred from Eisen hower to Kennedy, was learning new lessons. From the $8.50 rooms of the Gettysburg Inn, where they used to bivouac for Ike, they had moved to suites in the Palm Beach Towers Ho tel that went for $40 or more a night in season. One careful reporter calculated that it was costing him 30 per cent more to cover the President-elect. The Secret Service was having its indoctrination, too. One night in New York Kennedy careened around the city looking for the new restaurant La Caravel, and never did find it. He leaped out of his auto on Fifth Avenue, loped the half-block to "21," where he decided to have dinner. In the meantime a frantic search was on for
musical Do Re Mi. Kennedy, as usual, was late but the management held the curtain. The per formance was poor, the cast being too impressed with its
tickets to the
for the show,
guest. One woman in the balcony who climbed on her seat for a better look at Kennedy got stuck and had to be extricated
by a carpenter. Kennedy executed one of the most observed trips to the men's room in modern history, but he seemed not
the least concerned.
father's
In two days he was back in Florida being massaged in his house while talking on the phone and going over the
went
drafts of his inaugural address. One night he and his father to a reception for Herbert Hoover. If ever there was
Republican territory, that was it the home of Palm Beach banker J. Loy Anderson, his mansion filled with the gilt-edge
of
Palm Beach. "Hi
there,
Hoover. "Hello, Mr. President,
Chief/' said Joe Kennedy to how are you?" said his son.
They stood there in the crowd, the two of them Jack Ken nedy, the youngest man ever elected to the presidency in the history of the country, and Herbert Hoover, the oldest living
president of the Republic. "Do you have any advice now that I'm assuming this new responsibility?" asked Kennedy. Hoover smiled as best he could in the noise and under the hot TV kliegs. "Yes, I have some, but I don't think this is the
time or the place

vice for a
to give it to you.
Everybody has ad
You'll
new president. You'll have to hear from them all. have to make up your mind on what is good advice."
Final plans for live
TV presidential press
Frontier experiment.
conferences were
made
another
New
Kennedy watched
34
the growing international tension over Laos, decided that an other meeting with Eisenhower before inauguration would help illustrate a united America at a delicate time. He had
his aides
Q9
CHAPTER ONE:
work
it
out for January
19,
the day before the
power
change.
The Kennedy Georgetown residence was sold (for a ru mored $102,000) to Mr. and Mrs. Perry Ausbrook, young, wealthy and with an eye on history. Then suddenly there
was the thought that brother-in-law Sargent Shriver might want the house if he moved to Washington for the New Fron tier. Attorneys Clark Clifford and Dean Acheson went to work to unsell it, only to resell it to the Ausbrooks a few
weeks later. Appointments rolled out, names that meant little now but would be heard later George W. Ball, Under Secre tary of State for Economic Affairs; Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs; Angier Biddle Duke, Chief of Protocol; Newton N. Minow, chairman of the Fed eral Communications Commission.
.
John Kennedy
constitute a conflict of interest,
sold such of his financial holdings as might and for the first time the
nation had a glimpse of his worth. His income after taxes was roughly $100,000 a year, indicating that his portion of the vast Kennedy wealth was $10 million.
velt's
suddenly the talk of legislative activity like Roose 5 1933 "100 days" began to vanish. Before the election there had been such an expectation by some within the Ken
And
nedy camp, by journalists even more. But the victory had been too narrow. The temper of the Congress, streaming back into Washington, had been tested. Now came the first clear symptoms that the New Frontier's program would be a hard,
foot-by-foot struggle.
There was born a new theory. Kennedy's power would in crease year by year until it reached its peak perhaps at the start of his second term, in 1964. This expectation was con
trary to every political pattern.
But Kennedy had already
5 Later, when Kennedy was criticized for not acting enough like Franklin Roosevelt, he said, "This period is entirely different from Franklin Roosevelt's day. Everyone says that Roosevelt did this and that, why don't I? Franklin Roosevelt faced the task of passing a domestic program over and against vio lent opposition. The great issue today is in the field of foreign policy. People don't feel partisan about that."
og
shattered an assortment of political myths he was too young, he was too rich, he was Catholic. People would see, the think
ing went,
the 1962 congressional elections, he might reverse the tradition of a loss of seats by the party in power in off-year elections and actually increase the Democratic margin. By 1964 Kennedy would have shown
a
how good
man he was. By
his mettle
come back
yes,
enough to make further gains in Congress and to to the White House with confidence, stature and,
power.
the final fling on the golf course before he flew north for the last time as a senator. His special guest was evangelist Billy Graham. Some accused Kennedy of launch
Kennedy took
ing his 1964 re-election drive right then.

well.
He was
out to soothe
Graham, who had backed Nixon, and he seemed to do pretty Both the Reverend Graham and the President-elect were hitting long, straight balls down the Seminole Club
fairways. Kennedy kept the score. So prodigious President-elect's performance on the last hole that
was the he won
$20 from Senator George Smathers, also in the foursome. If the Reverend knew about this transaction, he kept a minis
terial silence.
The
an
press clamored for a word from Graham. He spoke as American citizen only. "The Bible teaches that we are to
pray for those in authority, and
I believe that the President, President Kennedy, will become the most prayed-for man in the world, praying that God will give him courage and wis dom, because he is going to be facing some of the most awe
some problems that any man in history has ever faced." Kennedy, in suntans and sport shirt, shifted his eyes down self-consciously. A little of the evangelist's fire blazed and the
correspondents quieted in the hot Florida night. "I think the campaign was conducted on a very high level. ... I think Mr. Kennedy is to be commended for facing it forthrightly. I think that he eased a great many fears that people had, in the forthright statements that he made in the matter of religion. ... I suspect that the religious issue will not be
raised again in the future, at least to the extent that it was raised in the recent campaign. I think that is a hurdle that has
." been permanently passed. To Kennedy he was "Billy" as they walked
.
to the front of
VA
the hotel.
CHAPTER ONE:
There was
the quick handshake, the good-bye. Ken wheel of his convertible. Secret
nedy jumped
Service
in behind the
ing in
man dashed for the other seat. Collar open, hair blow the warm night, John Kennedy, President-elect of the
States,
disappeared in the dark. and nothing seemed changed from a thou came, January 17 sand days before. It was. For this was the last
United
John Kennedy
flight
north to Washington
as a private citizen.
In three days
he would belong to the country totally and irreversibly. In normal fashion, he was half an hour late to the West Palm Beach airport. His motorcade wound over the dusty gravel road and out onto the landing apron, like a hundred
other motorcades from the long campaign, now fading in memory. Out of the car came the Kennedy legs, then the rest of the figure. Kennedy walked up to the policemen, shook their hands and thanked them. He had done so in every
Then, as always, he virtually sprinted up the folding metal steps of the "Caroline." He strode back to his private compartment in the rear and in the chair behind the desk. flopped big easy
States.
major
city of the
United
Captain
How
ard Baird guided the plane
end of the runway. It sat there and shuddered for a moment, then leaped into the air. At 2:04 P.M. John Kennedy had begun the last leg of
to the
down
his
long journey.
the end of his spine.
Kennedy lounged on
loosely,
He slumped
then straightened. He gulped milk and sawed away at a filet of beef. His wandered out the window. Below eyes was the Atlantic, later the snow-sifted of North Caro
ground
lina
lunch was done, he pushed it back, squinted into the sun, and the wrinkles around his eyes
his
and Virginia.
When
deepened in the last twelve months showed plainly. He tapped his teeth with his fingernails, a Kennedy habit of dec ades. He was in shirt sleeves and he was working on his in
augural address. Outside the President's cabin hard at work on the words.
Sorensen likewise was Amidships Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln rapped out the new versions as fast as they came along. Kennedy put his feet on the edge of the desk. On his lap he propped a yellow tablet. Over the first three pages he had
Ted
o K
scribbled in irregular strokes with a blue ball-point pen an opening for the address. I sat beside him and waited for him to speak. This was to be my last talk with Senator Kennedy.
"It's tough,"
he
said.
"The speech
to
to the Massachusetts
to meet that going standard/' He read the three pages out loud, his voice rather soft and restrained as heard over the drumming of the en
Legislature went
so well. It's
be hard
gines.
Now
had marked
there was none of the urgency, the stridency that his call to the New Frontier when he had been
campaigning. On the stump his voice had best been described as resembling a bagpipe, not exactly pleasant but arresting. He flipped the pages over as he read. The talk had a Kennedy ring to it. The opening paragraphs drew deeply from history. There were the words about our heritage. Then came the message. It was the belief that this country's spirit burned as brightly now as ever. What he was reading was an answer to the Soviet dogma that communism was the wave of the future. At this time neither the Soviet insistence on that theory nor Kennedy's answer were as clear as they would become. Here
was
the seed of his thinking.
When
"What
he finished reading, he paused.
He
glanced out the

it
"window again. He was not satisfied with the beginning, too drawn-out and did not get to his point soon enough.
want to the Revolution still
I
3 '
was
say,
he explained,
"is that the spirit of
is here, still is a part of this country." As his arm he gestured in a flat came and spoke, right up of his arm out the window and toward the far sweep plane
he
horizon. He scribbled on the pad for a moment or two more, crossed out some words. Then suddenly he flung the tablet on the desk and forgot the speech for a few minutes. He turned toward me. "How do I feel? I don't feel any different." He smiled a
little, slapped his
middle and rubbed
it
a bit.
There was a
new
bulge there, just a hint of a spare tire. He had gained al most fifteen pounds in the letdown from campaigning to the
sedentary life of President-elect. He weighed now close to i go and was considering dieting. The new weight, however, had smoothed some of that angular look of youth. If the ap proaching ordeal bothered Kennedy, he did not show it. He
2^2
CHAPTER ONE:
displayed no emotion.
cans,
Republi he noted, pointed out that it was balanced with imagined revenue. The budget mak ers had figured on increased postal rates and gas taxes, both
He was upset about the Eisenhower budget. Even

and even the Wall
Street Journal,
highly doubtful matters before Congress.
And
the national
income had been calculated on a boom economy, while most economic experts agreed that the economy was still in a slump. Red ink, Kennedy figured, would be blamed on him, since with only fairly minor revisions he must live with the Eisenhower budget for a year. He switched to the troubles in Latin America and gave a discouraged shake of the head. Then he turned to his own Cabinet and to lesser officials. "I've got good men. It looks
good."
For a fleeting second he worried about his vice president, about whether Lyndon Johnson could make the switch from
Senate Majority Leader.
resolved that problem easily. "Lyndon is good," he said. "He's going to do well we'll keep him busy. He's already got the Space Council
.
.
He
job."
Kennedy sat up as if practicing the part of There would be an executive order his first
after
the executive. the
morning
doubling the allotment of surplus food sent the to being depressed areas. "I'm going to start seeing people right away," he added. The big policy decisions faced him, too. The Laotian crisis continued. An immediate decision on nuclear testing might be needed. The gold outflow was still unchecked and action was required.
office,
he took
President-elect switched off this train of thought as quickly as he had let it flow. He reached to his desk again,
The
picked up a piece of yellow paper and studied
it.
Typed
neatly were some twenty-five passages from the Bible. They had been given to him the day before by Billy Graham. Ken
nedy had asked the evangelist for some recommendation for scripture to be used in his inaugural address. He read care fully down the list. He paused and read one aloud. " 'When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his
enemies to be at peace with him.' Proverbs 16:7. That's good."
QH
version (the sixth) to Mrs. Lincoln for typing. He looked at Sorensen, declared: "It will be a sensation." The two men
nodded to himself. "If you hear that in the 6 speech you'll know where it came from/' Kennedy jumped up, walked out of his cabin to hand this
read
it
He
again,
laughed.
gazed on Washington inauguration. It was a curious day,
The world
now
filled
the day before the with the most seri
ous business of national security, the unrestrained gaiety of the Democrats, the ludicrous turmoil from having too many a snowstorm. people in too small a city and the gray threat of The National Park Service had sprayed green dye on the to add a trace of grass around the Washington Monument were given a coat spring. The trees along the inaugural route
of Roost-No-More to keep the irksome starlings away. The Secret Service diligently battened down the manhole covers in the street to guard against bomb throwers. security The guard of more than 5,000 was mustered for the big day.
din by play police cavalry trained its horses for .the coming ing Spike Jones records over loud-speakers. John Kennedy slept fitfully on the second floor of his
Georgetown home. His window was thrown up, blue shutters

closed to block the view.
in the chill
messenger's motorcycle backfired
city
before seven, and an irritated Kennedy poked his head out, asked the Secret Service for quiet. But the was too alive. Newsmen began gathering below the win
dawn
dow,
traffic
picked up
up That morning Kennedy went

the
trying to sleep.
momentum on N Street. Kennedy gave He snapped on his light and dressed.

to see Eisenhower. Jerry
Per
sons stood on the doorstoop at the executive entrance of

to greet the President-elect. They moved office. For some fifty minutes the two men Ike's into quickly chatted alone, mostly about procedural matters. Ike sum moned a helicopter to the rear lawn of the White House to
White House
show Kennedy just how quickly it could be done. As Ike guided Kennedy into the Cabinet room, he joked
6
to
said instead: "Let both scripture passage was not used. Kennedy heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah to " free/ 'undo the heavy burdens . . [and] let the oppressed go
That
sides unite to
og
the
CHAPTER ONE:
men
assembled there, "I've shown
my
friend here
how
and the new, met to about the top international problems. Kennedy's Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara and Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon were on hand, as were their counterparts
talk
to get out in a hurry." This group was a mixture of the old
in Ike's administration
Christian Herter,
Thomas
S.
Gates
and Robert Anderson.

Subject by subject they went down the agenda, which had been worked out jointly by the aides of the two men: Laos,
Cuba, the balance of payments, Africa, and so forth. First Ike would say a few words, then his Secretary would take over with a fuller briefing. Kennedy interrupted each time
with questions. Laos took up most of the discussion. And it was at this meeting that Dwight Eisenhower wrinkled his brow as he glanced at the map of Southeast Asia and said,
is one of the problems I'm leaving you that I'm not about. happy may have to fight." Eisenhower's casualness in discussing these monumental
"This
We
problems was something that bothered the President-elect. "How can he stare disaster in the face with such equanim
Kennedy wondered to an aide as they drove from the White House. In a few short months Kennedy himself would
ity?"
exhibit
It
much
of this
was not disregard;
same "equanimity" in the face of crisis. it was simply the art of leading a dan
gerous world.
Kennedy abandoned his own home. Like a bridegroom, he had been evicted because of the space demands of Jackie, who was preparing for the two great days. The President-elect
took
up
residence in a tiny corner office in the

artist
home
liam Walton, Georgetown learned some of his duties

eral
and family
friend.
as
commander
in chief
of Wil There he from Gen
Lyman
L. Lemnitzer,
Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of
His Labor Secretary, Arthur Goldberg, came by for lunch and in the first flakes of the coming snow echoed the concern from within the House. "With some five and a half
Staff.
million unemployed, it is a bad situation which the ministration will have to do something about."
new ad
Then it came eight inches of thick snow, a present from North Carolina and Virginia. The city became gloriously
QQ
bogged down in a memorable night of traffic jams. Somehow the storm may have been what was needed to relax the capi tal. Nothing worked on schedule, but nobody expected it to. Yet everything went ahead. Jackie came out into the night radiant in a white gown, the snow swirling around her, a
man holding an umbrella over her. Half the National Symphony was stuck in the drifts when the couple got to Constitution Hall for the inaugural concert. But after half an hour's delay the remainder of the orchestra
Secret Service
was nearly two hours behind too, plunged right ahead once the Kennedy clan had gathered. It was interminable, and finally Jackie had to sneak out and return to Georgetown for some sleep.
schedule, but
it,
began to Frank
play. Sinatra's great gala
they began gathering in Paul Young's cavernous restaurant downtown for a special A.M. was party given by father Joe Kennedy. Not until 3:30 A.M. he was asleep. Kennedy home, and not until 4
The
others stuck
it
out.
At
2 A.M.
Four hours
a copy of his
utes reading
he was up, and he asked immediately for inaugural address. He sat quietly for a few min
later
at
it.
There was Mass
Holy Trinity Church. By now the peo
Street as cheer rang out down Jack and Jackie Kennedy came out to get into their bubbletop limousine for the ride to the White House.
ple lined the streets.
Coffee with Dwight and
Mamie Eisenhower,
then at
last
the two most important citizens of the United States began the famous mile from the White House to the Capitol. From someplace beside the White House the strains of "America"
drifted out over the snow.
As he rode
to the Capitol,
Ken
nedy
listened to Eisenhower at his side.

felt
The
retiring presi
dent told him that somehow he had
the Russians never
would start a war if this country remained firm enough. At 12:15 John Kennedy stood on the top step, looking out over the Capitol Plaza. He had just brushed by Nixon in the rotunda. They had exchanged greetings rather awkwardly and they had talked for a few seconds about the need for the
government
to finance presidential
campaigns.
tern.,
Senator Carl Hayden, Senate President pro
guided
him down
to the inaugural stand.
CHAPTER ONE:
Again Eisenhower and Kennedy talked, this time about D-Day in World War II. Kennedy had just read The Longest D&y, a book on the great invasion. Ike explained that one of this nation's advantages in the invasion had been the skill of our weather men. The Germans, not nearly so proficient in this science, felt that the weather would continue to be too bad for an assault.
Senator John
ion.
.
J.
Sparkman spoke.
inaugurate the thirty-fourth

.
are here today to president of this great Un
"We
/'
and pure blue, whiffs of white clouds here and there. Wind stirred the snow which blan scudding keted the Capitol grounds. It bit deeply because the tempera'
sky was a deep
The
ture was just twenty degrees, yet it felt fresh and promising to the people there. The flavor was New England, from Poet Robert Frost to the bareheaded man who became president
at 12:51 P.M.
Kennedy stood
coatless
the Boston accent,
and gave his message. It came with with the left hand doubled into a fist and
the right forefinger thumping the rostrum. "We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration
of
freedom symbolizing an end as well as a beginning ." signifying renewal as well as change. Eisenhower sat huddled in his thick overcoat, his white scarf up around his neck, his expression one of parting. "We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans born in this century, tem pered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world." Gone was the rasp of his campaign oratory. These words were read slowly. Soviet Ambassador Mikhail Menshikov sat impassive. His gray hat was pulled over his brow, he was swathed in a gray overcoat. His gloved hands were clasped in front of him. He did not smile, he did not frown. "So let us begin anew remembering on both sides that
.
.
Forming the
civility
New
Frontier
A-
is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always sub But let us to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. ject never fear to negotiate." Just for a moment it was as if he
were back in Wisconsin or West Virginia or California. His jaw came up, his voice rose. "In the long history of the world, defend only a few generations have been granted the role of shrink not do I freedom in its hour maximum of danger. ing from this responsibility I welcome it." And then a phrase that might stick with Kennedy for the rest of his life: "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what
your country can do for you
ask what you can
do
for your
country." In fourteen minutes the speech was over. As Kennedy walked up the Capitol stairs, a quiet figure in black walked
down them. Richard Nixon, now

his car
bent to get in when parked "So a few him. noticed long," they cried. suddenly spectators Surprised, Nixon straightened up. "Good-bye," he shouted
jobless, at the side of the steps.
went
to the
door of
He
ducked again, then he thought of something. He straightened again and raised his left arm. With two fingers he formed the V for victory sign. From the Republicans watching came a cheer. And then Nixon was gone.
back.
He
White House, Jackie Kennedy discovered that had not been used for years and were plugged The upstairs windows were also stuck from disuse. She up. wandered by herself through the vast house. She found com fort in Lincoln's bedroom; there the massive bed seemed the
Inside the
the fireplaces
only true link to the past,

structible.
its
huge dark frame almost inde

in
John Kennedy waved and smiled through the endless
visited each of the five inaugural balls in augural parade. a frantic whirl around the city that night. His final stop, after
He
midnight, was at his friend Joseph Alsop's.
It
was a
last
touch
of a life that was ending. The Secret Service men waited in caravan of reporters paced the snowy Georgetown street.
up and down out front. This was the pattern of the future. From a side door of Alsop's came the President. Only the glowing end of a cigar showed in the night. He walked alone out to his car. The caravan moved slowly back to the White
42
House, and
its
finally the
day was over.
The
north portico, with
massive lamp, formed a bright stage in the dark. hurried up the stairs, then he noticed reporters
Kennedy
running
along the walk below to get the day's

president.
last
glimpse of the
new
came
paused, thrust his hands in his pockets and to the edge of the porch for a final word. Wind
tails.
He
whipped his long
He smiled,
said
good night and walked
unhesitatingly through the front door.
CHAPTER TWO
FIRST DAYS
DESPITE morning
2 P.M.
his late inaugural night, the President of the United States climbed out of bed at 8 the next
for his
first official
By 8:50 he was in his barren
office.
At
day on the job. 10 former President
Harry Truman came up the front drive for his first visit since January 19, 1953. Kennedy came out to meet him, and
back to his
office
as they strolled
phenomenon. "This is poking a cane at the mass of photographers. Turning to them, he asked, "Are you going to elect him the new president of the One More Club? The other fella wouldn't have it."
dential
Truman explained a presi the One More Club/' he said,
Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley and six children toured the inner presidential sanctum. No less could be done for the man who delivered Illinois. The White House staff was
sworn in and there was a meeting of the top security people. Their mission: to study the Laotian situation and recom
mend a course of action.

Already Kennedy had been informed that the two Air Force officers, captives of the Russians for seven months after
their RB-^y plane was shot down by a Soviet fighter in the North Sea, might be released as a gesture to the new presi dent. Nikita Khrushchev was moving cautiously and Llewel lyn Thompson carefully reported from Moscow. There were demands. The main one was that Kennedy must give some kind of public assurance that this country would not resume
the U-2 type of reconnaissance flights over the Russian main-
CHAPTER Two
44
land.
Another was that
this
country would not use the re
leased flyers for anti-Soviet propaganda. Kennedy agreed, and his feelings were hastily cabled to Moscow. asked his staff to wheel a stuffed chair into his
Kennedy
office
from an adjoining room.
The new
president propped
the office up pictures of Jackie, Caroline and John, Jr., along a battle of naval him a find to wife his wall. He told painting
for over the fireplace.
roaming about the White House. He delighted in showing it to guests, he marveled at the sights himself time and time again. Routine was a sham bles. When he wanted somebody, he went to find him. He he could find, queried secre poked his head in all the doors
In those
first
days he was restless,
taries
on how they liked things, proclaimed the press room "a mess" when he got his first glimpse. was seen in the halls in riding breeches, and a minor
Jackie convulsion went through the press corps. One night the Presi dent slipped out of the White House unnoticed and went for dinner to his brother's house in McLean, Virginia. When the
White House
pictures,
found. Kennedy
was pro reporters learned of this, the dismay have second chances at let
photographers
he kept no rules about strolling out to greet his "You won't be able to go to guests. One journalist moaned, the men's room for fear of being scooped."
stories
Another night the President and Jackie delighted in the told by Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., as they walked through the mansion. He recalled how his Uncle Teddy Roosevelt's six children had all slept in the huge Lincoln bed crossways. And he remembered that during his father's time that suite had been occupied by Louis Howe. There were snorts of laughter when the group walked into the Red Room and William Walton, also on the tour, looked up at the portrait of Grover Cleveland and asked, "Who does that remind you of? Pierre Salinger." And indeed, without
the mustache, the likeness was unmistakable. Columnist Joseph Alsop sat in the projection booth of the
White House reviewing the television film of the inaugura tion and cried out to the President of the United States, "My
dear boy, look at you with that
The
silly top hat." President took a forty-two-page memo on the
Congo
First
Days
Ag
Department and read it at night in his quar ters. The performance was so unique that the story went along the department grapevine. He read all four task-force re as fast ports on agriculture, and he consumed other memos as they could be turned out. and first Jackie telephoned to Ethel Kennedy one morning to got four-year-old Courtney on the line. Courtney rushed
from the
State
her father's
side,
then breakfasting with three congressmen.

I
"Daddy, Daddy,
what, she has a
of
it all!
just talked to Jackie
swimming
pool inside her house/'
and do you know The wonder

fast that
The
staff
President ran one caller in and out so

exit,
the
did not notice his

office.
for a few minutes.
The phone rang on an
thus leaving the President alone aide's desk in the
outer
nedy.
"What's going on out there?" asked John Ken
Walking on an outside path, Kennedy skidded on the sand it put down over the ice and hurried to find a guard to sweep still wet and, was trod when the the He on ground grass up. on noticing that he had left footprints, made a careful inquiry turf. whether he had injured the Even the old hands were taken with the 34th President.
Speaker
Sam Rayburn,
still
unbowed by
the cancer that
would take his life in the first year of the new administra tion he had helped form, talked about the man in the White House. He hunched forward in his huge black leather chair as the winter's light was fading and the hour of good southern bourbon and talk came on the Hill, the place that he loved as him is dearly as life itself. "The first thing I want to say about that I thought he couldn't have done better through this whole damn jamboree last weekend [the inauguration]. He was the most unhurried man I ever saw and the most considerate. Why, he took time to talk to anybody, and he was interested in what they had to say. He made a fine im
.
.
." pression, a good start. As so frequently happened during these days,

. .
memories
went back on that January evening. He bowl and the bread lines and the man who came from Hyde
to Franklin Roosevelt.
They did with Mr. Sam remembered Texas and the dust
Park.
"Why, people were
starving to death," he said. "[Roo-
CHAPTER Two
.
. .
sevelt] was put on this earth at the right instant. This fellow Kennedy, why he's got a brain and he knows how to use it. That speech he made out here" Mr. Sam waved his
short
years
arm toward
and presidents
the Capitol Plaza, caressing the memory of "was better than anything Franklin
Roosevelt ever said at his best it was better than Lincoln. I think I he's a man of really think
destiny."
Suddenly the New Frontier was running itself. The govern ment had continued uninterrupted for several days. Only a few traces of Dwight Eisenhower remained.
still many misty-eyed Democrats around Wash who remembered the glorious intellectual ington binges of the New Deal. Some still recalled the tinkle of ice cubes at
There were
the Georgetown parties for bright young bachelors. There were visions still of Corcoran his accordion
Tommy
playing
and singing
The New Frontier brought some of this, but perhaps not as much as some wanted. Many of the key men around Kennedy did not even live in Georgetown. They found homes in suburbia, in the modest
but comfortable environs of Bethesda and Chevy Chase. And though the New Frontier had its share of youth, many of the Kennedy thinkers were on the lower fringe of middle age, as was the President himself.
at the intimate gatherings of the
mental
elite.
"Most of the men have had experience in government oper MIT's Walt W. Rostow, a White House staff member. "They know what discipline is. Most of them are about the same age as the President, a generation that saw a lot of war and diplomacy." The Rostows and the McGeorge Bundys and the Arthur Schlesingers were family people. Children and home duties
ations before/ said
7
contributions to the ad a 16-year-old girl, a is-year-old boy and a wife in Bethesda, his was weeknight to a
ministration.
sometimes cut into idle moments of good fellowship. "As quick as we can, we go home/' said Budget Director David Bell, one of the first seven Harvard
With
minimum. The Kennedy ten- to fourteen-hour day domi nated "The tempo of this administration is fantastic," sighed Bell. "The President is a fellow who has a
foot-long needle in
partying
kept
you
all
the time."
First
Days
too,
Rostow,
car
when
and headed home
to a boy, 8,
the long days closed climbed into his and a girl, 5. On the fringe
of the District of Columbia, McGeorge Bundy, the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, put his family ("Three children in school, one in the crib") in a large brick
home and
less his
laid
down a rule
that he did not go out at night
un
wife could go with him.
Solicitor General Archie Cox lived in the University Club while he pondered what to do about his family back in Wayland, Massachusetts, on fifteen acres of land. In addition to
three children, he had to consider the future of his wife, three

horses, twelve hens, a
The Washington
dog and two cats. scene had changed since the
1930'$,
and
the constant comparison of the dawning New Frontier with the New Deal was a deep miscalculation. The Washington
that Roosevelt came to, despite the immense economic prob lem facing the nation, was a city that was smaller, far less complex and less hurried than in 1961.
Washington had taken the commercial tour of the White House. She re called in detail its inadequacies and disappointments. She
was determined to change things. "Jackie/ explained a member of the family, "wants to be as great a First Lady in her own right as Jack is a President." She closeted herself with New York decorator Mrs. Helen Parish to go over ideas for the private quarters of the White House. The First Lady set up conferences with artist friend William Walton, John Walker, director of the National Gal
5
Jackie was stirring, too, in these early days. As an 11 -yearold girl she had come to with her mother and
lery of Art,
and David E. Finley, chairman of the Fine Arts Commission. She talked to them and others about changes
she she
in the public sector of the building.
Her mind probed further. How would she pay for work wanted done? Where would she get the rare furnishings
needed? Those people with money or just the strong spirit of felt who as she did the about White House would patriotism be glad to contribute, Jackie reasoned, and reasoned cor
rectly.
From the White House or from Glen Ora, the estate the Kennedys leased in the Virginia hunt country for week-
,O
end retreats, the calls went out to friends. The President be came interested in the project, and he too helped.
Kennedy summoned his legislative leaders to breakfast on Tuesday mornings, a routine that would become firmly estab lished. The leaders of his party on Capitol Hill included Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Speaker Sam Rayburn, House Ma jority Leader John W. McCormack, House Whip Carl Al bert, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, Senate Whip Hubert H. Humphrey and Senate Policy Head George A.
Smathers.
Over scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee, served in the fam ily dining room on the first floor of the mansion, these men talked about the plans of each week in Congress. Kennedy
cautiously tried out his new authority in the first meeting, and he told his leaders that he would like to deliver his State of
the
rective
Union message and one his
the following Monday. It was a polite di leaders acceded to immediately. But this
was the first time he had looked at his former colleagues from the other side of the table. Kennedy's transformation from legislator to executive was coming
along.
the meeting. Press Secretary Pierre Salinger was to be the spokes man for the White House, he said.
of the procedure baffled Hubert Humphrey. Asked what room he had eaten breakfast in, Humphrey had to admit he did not know. Then with a flash of his humor and a nostalgic thought about his own efforts for the nomina
The legislators themselves did not quite know how to Mr. Sam brushed by reporters, not saying a word after
The newness
act.
he said. "No, I don't know what room it was. I haven't been around here much. I tried to get the floor plan once but
tion,
I
didn't succeed."
Columbia's Professor Richard Neustadt, author of the slim book Presidential Power, the Politics of Leadership, which Kennedy had studied, pronounced himself pleased with the first show of the infant administration. It was to be an executive show. had talked about
it
countless times in the campaign. try had passed to the White House.
Kennedy The power
in this
coun
Now he was there.
"Kennedy
will demonstrate afresh the art of leadership/'
First
Days
A(\
there early and work predicted one confident aide. "He's in
ing away and so is everybody else." The papers flowed in a widening and deepening stream from the Kennedy office. It was obvious from the start that
problems
the President intended to rub himself against as many of the as he possibly could. "J a k works as hard as a hu
Caroline's cat,
man can/' said Joe Kennedy once. 1 The warm Kennedy spectacle continued.
named
Kitten, was brought official installation by Mr. and Mrs.
Tom
to the
White House
for
Jackie's at their estate in Virginia.
mother and
stepfather,
Hugh who had been keeping the
D. Auchincloss,
cat
So entranced with everything in the new government had the press and the reading public be come that Tom Kitten got a full interview with pictures. It
was dutifully reported by Salinger that Tom Kitten had moved into the playroom on the third floor, which was the room protected with linoleum that had been used by Eisen
hower's grandchildren. Further, Tom Kitten's first nights in the White House had been "restful." Kennedy added another unique touch by appointing Dr.
lady Janet Travell the White House phyician. For years doctor from New York had treated the Kennedys, and the President gave her much credit for clearing up his trouble
the
some back.
Dr. Travell took one look at the chair the President was some using at his office desk and declared, "I think I'll make
suggestions." In a few days
Kennedy had a new chair.
Kennedy tried an experiment. He put his press confer ences on nationwide live TV. No longer would the cramped
Indian Treaty Room in the Executive Office Building be used. Instead, the conferences would be switched to the luxurious New State Department Auditorium, a vast chamber with
thick beige carpeting and gaudy orange-and-black padded consultant Wil seats. From New York came the young
TV
liam P. Wilson to arrange the staging for the show. Salinger issued orders that the cameras were to give minimum inter
ference to the
i
word men, who would ask

of this quote was,
the questions.
a
little
The remainder
"And Bobby works
harder than
Jack."
CHAPTER Two:
5
rium.
hall outside the audito Special phones were installed in a hired to service was give instant transcripts reporting
regulars, reporters who cover the president constantly, were installed in reserved seats down in front. It was discovered that the blue drapes
of the conference.
The White House
behind the stand were too long, and in the last hours they had be taken down while two seamstresses rushed in to shorten the thirty-eight panels. A piece of white cardboard was placed
to
on the lectern
to reflect light into the President's face to help
dispel the shadows.
The day
all
before the
first
conference,
memorandums from
the departments flooded into the White House, posing the possible questions and the answers. These were made up
into notebooks and given to the President for study. And just before the afternoon show Kennedy went into a huddle with
Salinger,
Ted
Sorensen and McGeorge
Bundy
to talk over
possible questions and answers. Salinger fortified himself with legions of facts and figures about the current events in case the President might need a stray bit of information.
Salinger planned to sit at the side of Kennedy, ready to fur nish any data the President might turn to him for. Holly
wood could not have done

In a sense, that
is
better in preparing a spectacular.
what it was. The correspondents had the vague feeling that now they were becoming props in a TV drama. They feared that the
informality, the close give-and-take of the jammed quarters in the Indian Treaty Room, would be lost and that therefore
some of the revealing bits of the personality of the President would be covered up in the great production with cameras and lights and with microphones that looked like howitzers.
What was happening what, indeed, had happened was another step in the inexorable evolution of political com munication. Kennedy had been, was going to be even more, a creature of television. It had been laid out in the
campaign. Kennedy had used
astating effect, particularly
TV
ginia religious question.
when The TV debates with his opponent, Richard Nixon, may have won Kennedy the election. It was
plainly in the primaries with dev he answered the West Vir
through
TV
tones, the
Kennedy profile, the sincere Kennedy Kennedy thoughts could get to the people. He
that the
First
Days
K j
did not have to run the risk of having his ideas and his words shortened and adulterated by a correspondent. This was the era, not only in campaigning, but in holding the presi
TV
dency.
The
regular
White House correspondents, who had
grudgingly admitted magazine writers to their fraternity but still excluded TV reporters, simply would have to live with
it.
his first press conference the new President had the had biggest piece of news since his election. From Russia
For
that the two RB-47 flyers would be re from prison. Near 5 P.M. on January 24 Kennedy had been handed a pink cablegram from Moscow. It said that Capt. John R. MeKone and Capt. Freeman B. Olmstead would be released at
come confirmation
leased
A.M. Eastern Standard

to
planned
put the
Time the next day. Thompson men on a plane leaving Moscow at 4:30
A.M. (EST),
and they would be in Amsterdam at 11 A.M. For the first time the White House had some hot (EST). news to handle. late Salinger rode off to his Lake Barcrof t home in Virginia be to was he that instructions after leaving Tuesday night of out were called and told when the flyers prison. definitely So far the story had been held tightly. But by now more and more people were being told. The Air Force had to arrange were see transportation. In the State Department more eyes
ing the
Thompson cables.
as
soon as Salinger was home, his phone rang. It York Herald Tribune's White House corre David Wise, and he wanted to know what was go spondent, to around 2 A.M. that morning. Salinger tried to ing happen
Almost
was the
New
bluff it
through and told Wise to go to bed, just exactly what he was going to do. But in downtown Washington Wise and the Herald Tribune's aggressive staff were putting the story
they had the skeleton of the story and more times as alarmed govern Salinger's phone rang ment officials called in to say the Tribune knew the facts.
together.
By midnight
several
Wise called again. He told Salinger the correct story. As the Press Secretary's heart sank, Wise said suddenly that the
Herald Tribune planned
to carry the story unless it
was
in-
52
CHAPTER Two:
imical to the national interest. Salinger pointed out that the men were still in prison and that if the Tribune went on the
streets before
they were released, it might jeopardize their chances of release. Wise, with authority from his paper,
crisis passed, and Salinger agreed not to run the story. back into his pillow. At 4 A.M. came the slumped wearily
phone
The State Department's watch men had been released. officer reported that the
call
he had awaited.
that the
tire
In four more hours Salinger was at his office. He learned airliner but that a men had been put aboard a
KLM
and Gen of Eisenhower's aides one who J. Goodpaster, was helping to ease the change in administrations, hurried down the corridor to see the President as soon as he arrived at
had blown
out, delaying their take-off. Salinger
eral
Andrew
his desk.
"That's tough luck," said Kennedy, hearing about the delay. But then he asked that the wives and families of the men be
to Washington to meet their husbands. was out even though it had not been published. It ran through the Washington grapevine all Wednesday morning and afternoon. But it was still a national surprise
notified
and flown
The
secret
when John Kennedy

first
strode across that carpeted stage for his
news conference, televised to thirty-six million Ameri cans who eagerly watched their sets. "Good afternoon and be seated," came the Kennedy voice in low key. "I have several announcements. I have a state ment about the Geneva negotiations for an atomic test ban. ." He was deliberate and thorough on this subject. he went as on, "Secondly," suspense built up, "the United States government has decided to increase substantially its contributions towards relieving the famine in the
.
.
." Congo. He was torturing the reporters. Then, finally: "Third, I am happy to be able to announce that Capt. Freeman B. Olmstead and Capt. John R. McKone, members of the crew of the United States Air Force RB-47 aircraft who have been
. .
detained by Soviet authorities since July

released by the Soviet government the United States. ."
. .
i, 1960, have been and are now en route to
First
Days
KO
borders, the
the news out, with the flyers safely beyond Soviet New Frontier viewed with pleasure its first in volvement with Nikita Khrushchev. Though it had been a
With
very simple matter,
it
meant much
to
John Kennedy,
for this
was
with the Soviet government. Ken nedy harbored the bright hope that in some way he could establish communication with the Russians. Kennedy had never met people with whom he could not establish some understanding. His political success was a
his first official contact
monument to persuasion, to "reasoning together," as Vice President Lyndon Johnson liked to say. His collection of the
necessary Democratic delegates at the national convention, while it had looked like a power play on the outside, was far
more a matter of the Kennedy persuasion. John Kennedy, when asked, could not exactly explain it, it just happened, he said. When you sat down with a "rational" person and you
both frankly explained your views, it seemed that always there were greater areas of agreement than either party had thought possible. In countless hotel rooms across the land he had looked into the eyes of delegates and explained what he
believed, what he wanted. Time after time the men and women had come from these encounters with new ideas about
young candidate: he wasn't a socialist or a communist, he didn't seem wild or irresponsible, he wasn't uppity despite his millions, he seemed to understand them. He knew their names and their home towns, and something akin to sincere interest in them flickered in those eyes. When face to face, the
the
misunderstandings, the inaccuracies, the false impressions melted away. Two men together could do a lot.
Thus, the very delicate dealing for the return of Olmstead and McKone was the beginning of a dialogue between John Fitzgerald Kennedy of Boston and Nikita Sergeyevich Khru shchev of Kalinovka, the re-establishment of communication between two huge powers which had turned away from each
other
when
the thin-winged U-2 plane,

land.
will
it
its
cameras whirring,
had
fallen
on Russian
do any harm/' said Kennedy, "to hold firm" he doubled his right fist "but probe around he waved his left hand, fingers open "to see if the edges" we can't communicate in some ways."
"I can't see that
54
X-
CHAPTER Two:
*
st
ill
the excitement of the return of the
flyers,
another im
portant event took place almost unnoticed. It was John nedy's first Cabinet meeting.
Ken
The Cabinet members, even Adlai Stevenson, new ambas sador to the United Nations, filtered through the half dozen entrances to the business end of the White House. They
walked over the thick green carpeting in the Cabinet Room and took chairs. In the center of this cool chamber is a mas sive mahogany table with eight sides. It measures twenty feet from end to end and seven feet at its widest point. Its huge
flat
surface seems to float in the room,
something like the
steel
acres of
an
aircraft carrier.
at the widest part of the president. The table then tapers to smaller ends each way, the other members ranging around so that member can
John Kennedy sits in the middle, table. Across from him is his vice
every
see the faces of the President
and the Vice
President.
The
shape of the table has been compared to that of a coffin. And, indeed, on gray days its dark smooth surface can seem almost
sinister.
Thursday, however, the atmosphere was light The in which he urged his Cabinet officers to discuss their problems with freedom and candor. He wanted their full views, he did not want rubber stamps, he told them. He had read the memoirs of other Cabinet officers from the past, Kennedy continued, and he had sensed from these that some Cabinet meetings in other administrations had not been as fruitful as they might have been had there been greater freedom of thought and discus
this
On
President
made an opening statement
get-acquainted meeting any a little self-conscious, sitting there in that famous room, each with a black leather chair with a brass name plate on the back.
sion at the meetings. Then, one by one, he called on the men to talk about their and their plans. departments None of them could say much, since they were all so new to their tasks. It was a more than
thing
else.
They were
Adlai Stevenson spoke up.

tribute to the
He
gave a short but eloquent
President, declaring unabashedly that it was "good to be on the New Frontier." Dean Rusk pledged firmness in an easy voice.
new
First
Days
*,
There were some quiet chuckles when the President turned to his brother, lowered his eyes and smiled. "Now/' he said, "we'll hear from the Attorney General." What the Attorney General had to say has been forgotten. But the
power
in this fraternal
weld
first
sensed in that
moment
still
pervades Cabinet meetings.
H A PTE R T H R
EE
PRESIDENT
AT WORK
WHEN
American
it
RB-47 on American
his wife
Pilot
soil
John McKone stepped back on January 28, 1961, he greeted

kiss in the finest
with a long intense
tradition.
One
reporter insisted that
he had timed
at twenty-seven seconds.
The new
of an intruder at that
President of the United States, feeling somewhat moment, turned away, scuffed his shoes
at the concrete.
and looked blankly

to friends later.
stick all over
And he
"Some kiss," he grinned even kidded McKone: "You had lip

history. It
your face."
But the
of the
kiss
had made
marked the culmination
first
Kennedy-Khrushchev negotiations.
And
it
was
probably the last thoroughly blissful event in John nedy's early months as President of the United States.
Ken
first months were months-ef crisis. From February to October the news, as Kennedy had predicted, got worse be
His
fore
it
got better.
Week
after
week the new administration
was battered with trouble, most of it international. Americans who had lived confidently under the postwar wing of this nation's unchallenged military might suddenly became frightened. The bomb-shelter business boomed.
Housewives made pathetic little efforts to store canned goods under their basement stairs. America's faith in herself fal
tered in this period. That great margin of terror which former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had used in his
President at
Work
^H
global diplomacy no longer was balance o terror now.
much
of a margin
it
was a
In February of 1961, a scant two weeks after John Ken nedy had assumed office, the unmistakable signs of what was
to
come could be detected by even the most casual observer. Once again the word "Berlin" cropped up in White House
Khrushchev had threatened
talk.
to sign a separate peace East with treaty Germany if the other three powers the United States, Great Britain and France would not join in
officially
a settlement that would

years.
end the war
after sixteen
and messy war in Laos, the one which Eisen hower had warned about, kept getting worse. Kennedy sum moned his task force and his military chiefs in meeting after meeting. He sought information and more information about the murky jungle kingdom. He saw then, too, the deep trou ble ahead for South Vietnam. Walt Rostow, the aide heading the Southeast Asia Task Force, found a report on Vietnam and took it to the President. "This is the worst one we've got/'
stealthy
The
Kennedy said after reading it.

Strife
continued in the Congo.
One day
Central Intelli
gence Director Allen Dulles sat scross from Kennedy and told him that in all likelihood Patrice Lumumba, who had
in the eastern
been taken from his prison in Thysville, Katanga, was dead Congo bush. The leader had been backed by
the Soviet
in his bid for power against the central under government Joseph Kasavubu, established by the a United Nations. On Monday morning before the President had returned to the White House from his Glen Ora retreat, Salinger was on the phone with the firm news that Lumumba had been murdered. Kennedy listened quietly to the report,
Union
then told Salinger to issue the statement already prepared
which expressed "great shock/' The White House waited for the Russian outburst. It came twenty-four hours later and in cluded a general attack on the United Nations. Kennedy called Dean Rusk and the two of them decided to wait until his news conference at midweek before replying to the Rus sians, but there was no doubt about the reply. Kennedy re mained firmly behind the United Nations and the presence of UN forces in the Republic of Congo. An hour before Ken-
,Q
CHAPTER THREE:
nedy's news conference of February 15, the top-drawer Soviet experts assembled in the Cabinet Room. There were Rusk;
former Soviet Ambassador Charles Bohlen; Paul H. Nitze, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Af
fairs;
national
aide,
Harlan Cleveland, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter Organizations; Kennedy's own national security McGeorge Bundy; and other staff members.
for
Rusk had brought along a statement

at his
Kennedy
to give
news conference. The President sat in one of the black leather chairs and read the draft. He found it too tough. He wanted to answer the Soviet threats of intervention firmly but not harshly; he still wanted to keep open that delicate line of communication between himself and Khrushchev which had been established by the return of the two RB-47 flyers. The President felt the Russian cries over the Congo were a bit hollow. A battle in the Congo, though an unpleas ant place for either nation to fight, would favor the United States. The President got Adlai Stevenson on the phone. (That afternoon, as Stevenson had been talking in the United Nations, a fight had broken out between UN guards and proLumumba demonstrators.) For more than an hour Kennedy and Stevenson hammered away on the statement. Only a short while later Kennedy walked across the carpeting of the New State Department Auditorium clutching the rolled-up
paper with the final statement. Kennedy furrowed his brow, began to read to reporters. "Ambassador Stevenson in the Security Council today has ex pressed fully and clearly the attitude of the United States government toward the attempts to undermine the effec
tiveness of the
States can take care of itself,
exists so
United Nations organization. The United but the United Nations system that every nation can have the assurance of security.
to destroy this system
is
Any attempt
at the
a blow aimed directly
independence and
security of every nation, large
and
small. I
am
also,
however, seriously concerned at what ap

. . .
affairs of the
pears to be a threat of unilateral intervention in the internal The United States has republic of Congo.
supported and will continue to support the United Nations ." presence in the Congo.
. .
President at
Work
^,^
February 12 the Russians fired another of their massive and sent a projectile toward the planet Venus in a spectacular space probe which once again overshadowed in world propaganda the United States' own more modest ef forts. In a resigned voice Kennedy told his news conference at midmonth: "We have sufficiently large boosters to protect us militarily, but for the long, heavy exploration into space,
rockets
On
which requires large boosters, the Soviet Union has been ahead and it is going to be a major task to surpass them."
the areas of bafflement when Kennedy took office, seemed more perplexing than the others. Kennedy space seemed to know less about it, be less interested in it. At first he could only reflect the views of the scientists. And the gov ernment's scientific advisers were a mystic group, many of whom in the past had tended to scoff at Soviet efforts until they found the Russians surpassing them. The view Ken nedy got, heavy on the pure scientific accomplishments of the finer, more sophisticated rockets and gadgetry from the American laboratories, tended to ignore the world's political battle, the immense propaganda war that means so much in conquering uncommitted minds. Russia already had made
all
lite.
Of
gains in this respect in being the first nation to launch a satel Now came the Venus probe. The government advisers
be the first man in space. The answer was a plea to the press to emphasize the superior scientific information being gathered by the United States, not to be wooed by the spectacular nature of the big Soviet feats. It was a naive appeal and others in the New Frontier understood this. "If we aren't first on the moon," said one of Kennedy's close advisers, "we had just as well
fully expected a Russian to
scientific
give up/'
Fidel Castro
still
ward
Florida.
And
stared across that ninety miles of water to one White House staff member, after re
viewing the political situation in Latin America, told Ken nedy flatly that there were twelve South American countries that could conceivably go communist in six weeks.
Nor was
the trouble confined to the rest of the world.
On a
Tuesday morning John Kennedy held his breakfast meeting with Cabinet and legislative leaders. The topic: nagging un-
j^
CHAPTER THREE:
employment, the sluggish economy. At the meeting's close, Speaker Sam Rayburn came through the White House lobby shaking his head, pushing newsmen aside. "It is the most ur gent situation since the great depression," he warned, then
hurried back to the Hill.
And
then came the crucial vote on expanding the House
Rules Committee to allow liberal legislation easier access to the House floor. It was Lyndon Johnson who first sensed
trouble. His nose count in the
ing.
He
hurried back
House showed the effort falter down Pennsylvania Avenue with the
bad news. Sam Rayburn was using every bit of his personal prestige, but apparently it was not quite enough. The Presi dent called in his best, most trusted political helper, his brother Bob. The two of them and Larry O'Brien drew up a plan of attack. Every House member was to be contacted,
every persuasion to be used. John Kennedy phoned key men himself. Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior and a former
into service. Such congressmen Richard Boiling (Missouri) and Frank Thompson (New Jersey) were assigned specific men to plead with. O'Brien drew a chart, checked names as commitments came in. It was just like the Democratic convention in Los Angeles. No de tail was left to chance. Everything was recorded on cards.
as
House member, was pressed
Then came
New Frontier won by five votes was sweet, but to John Kennedy victory there was a warning in that vote. If on this matter, which had
the tally,
and the
(217 to 212).
The
united his strength and had gotten twenty-two Republican

votes, the
sectional interests
this tough, what would happen when and economic interests intruded? It was grimly noted that the figures showed sixty-four Democrats from the South and border states aligned against the Presi
going was
dent.
As Kennedy saw
it,
one of
his
main
tasks
was
to battle the
country for his program, so that the voters would provide a counterweight to the skillful and wealthy lobbyists. "On highways, the truckers already
are out against me/' mused the President in private. "There's the American Medical Association and the Chamber of Com
pressure groups, to arouse the
merce opposed to other things. Some of these pressure groups have become so bureaucratic themselves that I don't believe
President at
Work
Qj
they represent the majority of people in them. are in the middle of the road/'
The
people
President of the United States could only reflect that Capitol Hill, too, would get worse before it got better.
The
Beyond the eighteen acres of White House grounds there were only occasional faint ripples in a calm of complacency. The country had installed its new president with a flourish. It liked his style and his words. Now, the nation would wait a bit to see what he could do.
his children.
In the meantime the people studied the man, his wife and Every move was written about. Every word re
corded.
After the Kennedys had the new administration appointees over for a Sunday night reception, the Washington society columnists gasped. The evening Star's Betty Beale listed the single eight social precedents which were shattered in
evening.
was an honest-to-goodness bar which dispensed hard liquor right out in the open. It was no secret that in previous administrations
By
far the biggest headlines
went
to the fact there
you could get a little bourbon or maybe even a martini if you knew how to go about it, but never in recent years had the cocktail been given such status. There were ash trays scattered about, too, which meant that smoking was allowed,
another break with tradition. "Naturalness was the keynote of this party," sighed Miss Beale, still shaken by the new look when she got to her type writer. Children had been invited also, and they romped
the grownups. Fires burned in the fireplaces and small bowls of blossoms decorated the niches and tables. Still at her typewriter, Miss Beale figured it out: "But have decided that obviously, President and Mrs. Kennedy to offer the same hospitality to their guests are
among
they
going
when
would naturally do if they reporters are present as they weren't, or if they were living back in their own house on
Street."
reason for this reception," Kennedy told his guests, "is the desire to see some of the names I have been reading
"The
about in the newspaper."
go
CHAPTER THREE:
long hours of the days were
filled
The
with work; weary
ing meetings, thick reports to be read Though so much of the Kennedy life was
critics of this
and acted upon. and is work, the
to overlook the
phenomenal American family sometimes tend drudgery which goes into a Kennedy triumph.
The
good
takes
writers always note that the Kennedys have money, looks and power. To mold them into success, however,
more than a magic word. The new President was invari ably awake by 7:30 or 8 in the morning. Sometimes he read newspapers in bed as he ate breakfast, at other times he dressed for a work session while he consumed two poached eggs. Kennedy walked to his office by 8:30 or 9 and plunged into meetings. Seldom did he leave before 7 or 8 P.M., and many staffers would send papers on his telephone demand to the private quarters as late as 1 1 P.M. So burdensome were the frantic early days that once he looked at an aide and said, "Nixon should have won the election." The large Oval Office began to look and feel like President
New
Kennedy. The pale-green walls were smothered in a coat of England off-white. The two couches flanking the fire place were hurried out and recovered in a light beige. A new stock of oak firewood was rushed in for the fireplace, which now crackled all the time. There were the marks of a Navy man: on the walls flanking the fireplace hung two naval pic tures showing the 1812 battle between the "Constitution" and the British frigate "Guerriere," and on the mantle was a model of the "Constitution."
Just before the Kennedy children and the faithful terrier Charlie flew up from Palm Beach to take up residence in
their
famous new house, Jackie
let the
public in on
how
she
had decorated
their rooms: Caroline's was painted a pale pink with white woodwork, John's white with white wood work and a blue trim around the door moldings. The in formation was rushed over the wires and received as much
space as the heavier matters of state. Reporters pestered Jackie reluctantly let out a menu of a dinner served to
and
Bob
and Ethel Kennedy: consomme Julienne, filet of beef, sauteed mushrooms, potato balls, mixed green salad, assorted cheese and crackers, creme brulee with strawberry sauce and
coffee.
President at
Work
eyes
go
and a carrot nose
huge snowman with button
waited for Caroline in the back yard of the White House, the sculpture done by the gardener. She was delighted. In fact,
she was fascinated by all her new surroundings. After taking a second look at the snowman, with her father in tow, she toured the President's office. She got a view of the indoor
swimming pool,
"It's
stuck her
hand
into the water
and exclaimed,
the diplomatic corps was invited to a reception, she helped greet the guests in a fancy party dress ("It's my very best," she told admirers). No doubt there will
warm."
And when
be
many endearing
sights in this administration of
young
children, but few will top the picture of Caroline standing on the red carpeting in the foyer of the White House listening to the President's own Marine Band.
people and young
Her foot twitched to the music, and when she was granted a special request, she asked for "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," which was rendered with such polish that few of the
diplomats noted the tune. If Caroline was a hit at this reception, so were other
nedys. Jackie State Dining
Ken moved slowly among the people in the huge Room, using her French often. Bob Kennedy,
bumping into Soviet Ambassador Mikhail Menshikov, asked him to come to the Justice Department, "where we check up
on communist spies." Replied the jolly Russian: "Perhaps come one day and look at the outside." When the President approached Madame Herve Alphand, wife of the French ambassador, he greeted her in French, "Comment allez-vous?" then he laughed and lapsed into English. "My wife speaks good French. I understand only one out of every five words but always de Gaulle." about the evening he had talked Joe Kennedy laughed with Caroline on the phone from Palm Beach and she had asked to speak with her cousin Steve Smith, who was in
I'll
. . .
Florida with her grandfather. In the background the elder Kennedy could hear a presidential plea: "Hurry up, Caro line, I want to use the phone."
unnoticed one night to the home of the Benjamin C. Bradlees, former Georgetown friends and neighbors. But such was not the luck on the evening they were to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Rowland Evans, Jr., New York
The Kennedys went
/2
04
CHAPTER THREE:
Herald Tribune correspondent, and the paper's owner John Hay (Jock) Whitney and his wife. The plan leaked when
the Secret Service ordered snow-cleaning crews to get rid of the drifts and ice that clogged the curbs. To the embarrass
ment
of the Evanses, the story soon was

as
casts and, of course, reporters
on the radio news showed up on the sidewalk to
photograph the Kennedys
they arrived.
presidential itch to see the movie Spartacus sent the Se cret Service scurrying to the Warner Theater one afternoon
to check
its safety.
That evening after the
lights
were dimmed,
Secre
Kennedy and
his friend Paul B. Fay, Jr.,
now Under
tary of the Navy, slipped in undetected. Noting a familiar figure in the row ahead of him, the President tapped Orville
Freeman on the shoulder. "This is a hell of a way to write a farm program," said the grinning Kennedy to his Secretary of Agriculture. Freeman, like Kennedy, had sought out the dark theater to escape for a while from the long office hours. The Kennedy wit itself was becoming legendary. The very night after he had been inaugurated, the President had gone to the all-stag Alfalfa Club Dinner, with its program of lampoons. Kennedy had been the hit of the evening, ribbing the men in his administration. Clark Clifford, went the Kennedy story, had chosen the Cabinet, had chosen the subcabinet and had even ridden a buffalo in the inaugural pa rade. "And all he asked in return was that we advertise his law firm on the backs of the one-dollar bills." He couldn't
understand, the President had continued, all the fuss over his appointing his brother Attorney general. After all, he said, he always thought that it was a good thing for a young attorney to get some government experience before going out into private practice.
His spontaneous humor almost always dealt with the mat Talking to the National Industrial Conference Board, he was in fine fettle. "It has recently been suggested that whether I serve one or two terms in the presidency, I
ter at hand. will find myself at the end of that period at what might be called the awkward age too old to begin a new career and
my memoirs. similar dilemma, it seems posed by the occasion of a presidential address to a business group on business conditions less than four weeks
to me,
is
too young to write
President at
Work
Q~
be be
after entering the White House for it is too early to for credit the new and too late to administration claiming
blaming the old one. And it would be premature to seek your support in the next election, and inaccurate to express thanks for having had it in the last one/' His reading suddenly became a phenomenon. Reporters found that he read their every word, sometimes called them up to praise or complain. He consumed five newspapers with his morning coffee. In voracious glances he could absorb a difficult memo on economics. He read from 1,200 to 2,000 words a minute, maybe faster when the going was light. At tractive magazines and books had to be secreted by staff members. Left out on desks, they were prey for the hungry
Kennedy eyes. When he wanted
the facts
a massive government an aide suggested that

the detailed account.
on Cuba and the document was trotted
rise of Castro,
out.
Timidly
Kennedy read the synopsis, but the was halted with a Kennedy wave. He went through suggestion
first
He went after specifics. The front pages of newspapers got attention. He scanned the headlines, skimmed through
on the
pieces of marginal interest, took a moment or so longer with the vital stories while he sucked out their juice. He stopped
editorial page, taking more interest in the columnists than in the editorials.
to browse
Kennedy had a weakness

ber insisted that the
for a fine phrase.
One
staff
mem
New Frontier began in a
"French phase/'
simply because of the eloquent message sent to Kennedy by Charles de Gaulle after the election. Kennedy sometimes
wondered how much of Winston Churchill's stature was built on the use of words. Often he read the Churchill memos book to be Melbourne, Cecil, the story of William Lamb, one of Queen Victoria's prime ministers. Those Kennedy students who rushed to the library for a copy found it described a ruling class of people with remote resemblances to the Ken
by Lord David
nedy clan.
just to savor their craftsmanship. Kennedy proclaimed his favorite
Though the President generally stuck to nonfiction, he oc casionally strayed. It was discovered with some relish by
gg
CHAPTER THREE:
mystery buffs that he was a fan of the hard-drinking, hardfighting British Secret Service agent James Bond, the crea tion of Ian Fleming.
Kennedy print consumption and found that, in addition to his diet of newspapers and maga zines in the course of a few days, he read Henry Kissinger's The Necessity for Choice, a heavy volume on nuclear war; Elting Morison's story of the life and times of Henry Stimson, Turmoil and Tradition; Cornelius Ryan's The Long est Day; John Kenneth Galbraith's The Liberal Hour, a col lection of essays; and selections from a compendium on
Somebody
listed
the
nuclear testing. In his Senate days Kennedy had taken a speed-reading course, though even before he was an extremely rapid reader.
Nor was he
Jackie, too,
the only one with that talent in his family. decided to try the speed-reading course. When she took the initial tests for speed and comprehension, her
score revealed that she did not
need the course. While Kennedy's reading was gratifying to writers, pub lishers and government officials, there was another Washing ton man more pleased than any. He was A. T. Schrot, a Re publican who owned the Cosmopolitan Newsstand on i5th Street. It was there that the White House bought most of its papers and periodicals. When Kennedy arrived, Schrot's White House business went up 400 per cent, and, in Schrot's
words, "that's a hell of a lot."
Kennedy was a memo man. Soon after he took office, he ordered a dictaphone installed beside his desk. Throughout the day he would whirl and talk into the machine. Toward
evening Mrs. Lincoln would rescue the transcriptions and type out the memos.
They were terse messages; sometimes only a sentence or two centered on an eleven-by-eight sheet of paper. There was a low key about them, like Kennedy himself. They had an understated manner, almost a politeness in "suggesting" and "appreciating" rather than demanding. Early in Febru ary he fired off this quick sentence to an aide: "I would ap
preciate it if you would read the Congressional Record the House and the Senate every day." In a memo to a staffer
concerning
letters
he planned
to
send out he displayed his
President at
Work
,_
intimate knowledge of what makes a senator or congressman
perk up. Wrote Kennedy:
"p
members
of the
House and the Senate
will send] these letters so that will see that I am
watching their work/'

In the thick sheaves of memos was the constant quest for information. "I would like to have more information on the progress of the negotiation with the Germans on increasing
their participation in foreign aid countries and to defense."
to
the underdeveloped
And always his memos reflected his newspaper reading. To Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara he sent a brief
reminder: "I note that Congress has once Department of Defense for not giving small business. This is an old complaint. sible for us to do better than has been
think
again criticized the
more contracts to ... If it isn't pos

done in the past
I
we should know more about it. If it is possible for us to do better we should go ahead with it and I think we should make some public statements on it. Would you let me know about this?"
character analysts dug at Kennedy. Despite the fact had been on the public stage continuously for four years, they seemed to have just discovered him. It was noted that he was not a vindictive man. After a battle which he
that he
The
won, he picked up his adversaries, dusted them fered his hand.

After the
off
and
of
made
ginia's
his
House Rules Committee fight, Bob Kennedy way up to Capitol Hill to the quiet office of Vir Judge Howard Smith, Rules Committee chairman
and archenemy of all liberalism. The two sat in the judge's office and talked over many subjects. The judge, who on a Saturday was fond of going to his farm in Virginia and scratching an old red sow behind the ear, talked in his gentle country tones. He allowed as how he felt the younger genera tion which had taken over the government (he was too courtly to mention John Kennedy by name) seemed to him and those of his era to want to go too fast. He was trying to slow it down a little, in keeping with his own convictions and those he felt sure his people held. The two men, one 35 the other years old, 77 years old, talked about the University of Virginia where they had both gone to school. It was a
jo
CHAPTER THREE:
pleasant chat between two politicians and two Americans, both understanding the business they were about, both know
ing that victory and defeat were daily occurrences.
They
yet
parted on kindly terms. Neither had changed his view
some warmth lingered. From the White House routine came a hint
nedy administrative
tors
style.
of the
Ken
Out was
the formal, board-of-direc-
type of management, with weekly Cabinet meetings and National Security Council meetings at a set time and
John Kennedy lived and worked informally. He phoned people when he wanted to talk to them. He sum moned them to his office when he wanted to look at them as
place.
he talked.
He
did not bother certain
men
with other men's
problems. The Cabinet meetings and the National Security Council meetings in a formal sense withered after the first
week.
coff
"Why should we bother Orville Freeman or Abe Ribiwith something they know nothing about?" asked Bob Kennedy, who already was marked as the second most power
Kennedy had a public calendar appointments and meetings; and there was his own secret
in this government.
ful
man
of
list,
usually running longer than the public one. Constantly during the day the schedule was rearranged to suit him. He
summoned
the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense to breakfast or lunch or dinner or to his private quarters. There were splinter groups from the Cabinet and from the
National Security Council, the men directly concerned with the matters Kennedy wanted to discuss. From the outside, the
Kennedy administration took on a formless flow. Because there was no regularity, policy sometimes seemed to be con structed in haphazard fashion. There was less hint of what was going on in the Oval Office because of the relative secrecy
of the small quiet gatherings. Journalists, in a first but sub dued wave of criticism, began to ask who was making policy.
The answer was that Kennedy was making policy. He wanted to know about every problem, every detail of government.
He decided to drop the Operations Co-ordinating Board, which had been charged with implementing policy decisions of the National Security Council. To Kennedy it was just an other layer of fat in which orders could get lost. Already he had discovered the lag between decision and implementa-
President at
Work
gg
that he sometimes had to ask three times be was taken. Kennedy was reaching for power. He wanted all the lines to lead to the White House, he wanted to be the single nerve center. This characteristic was familiar. To get his party's nomination, he had quietly collected the delegates the power and then had turned back easily all the challenges at the Los Angeles convention. Why did he want to be presi dent, he had been asked during the campaign. Because, he had said, that was where the action was, where you could get things done, where the power lay. Once in the White House, John Kennedy did not mean to dissipate the power available
tion.
He found
fore action
to
him by passing
Thus,
as
to others
at least not right away.
February
closed,
Kennedy
drifted
between two
strong currents the natural ebullience of his and the surging darkness of world trouble.
New
Frontier
He
a
could chortle
to a friend in a light
moment, "This
is
could throw open the French doors job." beside his desk and breathe deeply of the cool air, now with
a hint of spring in
it,
damned good
He
his office for a stroll
and occasionally he could break out of around the grounds to clear his head.
He
lems.
got over the hurt at inheriting Eisenhower's prob At a National Security Council meeting the problems
were all neatly contained in a folder. Ken "Let's see now, did we inherit these, or are began, nedy
up
for discussion
these
our own?"
entire country was distracted when the new cook. Filipino Pedro Udo had
The
for Ike,
looked for a
but Jackie had other

as master of the
ideas.
She installed
Kennedys been fine French chef
Rene Verdon
White House
kitchen.
in the lull of
Kennedy from the start took time out to see reporters. And one noon he talked to me. He was behind his
I first
desk as
entered, a desk littered with papers, scratch
and thick memorandums. For a few precious seconds as I walked across the rug he turned to the small table behind him on which the day's newspapers and maga zines were neatly arranged. He bent his head briefly to scan the headlines, then he whirled and put out his hand. It all seemed different now as he approached. Doubtless
pads, books
w^.
CHAPTER THREE:
little
there was
office
physical change in the few short weeks of tan had faded a little, the lines around the perhaps the eyes were etched more finely from the constant reading.
But the
for the
It
real difference in this
meeting was in the
office
which
moment seemed to be the biggest office in the world. was bright with its white paint, the temperature several degrees cooler than in the surrounding rooms. The sun cast
diffused squares of light on the thick rug after filtering through the drapes. The surroundings were now all Kennedy.
Even Eisenhower's old desk bookends the golden eagles were perched on the wall bookshelves. In their places were miniature shipboard cannons from Revolutionary War days. They fit with the naval paintings on the walls. The manners were the same. Kennedy gestured toward a
chair and then sat carelessly behind his desk, clasped his hands around a knee. When the office doors are closed, the silence is enormous. The President sits only a hundred yards from bustling Penn sylvania Avenue. Beyond his office walls the antechambers bulge with secretaries and aides. But suddenly it was quiet,
an unusual atmosphere for Jack Kennedy, who for four long hard years never seemed to be out of sight and sound of a huge American crowd of voters. In the quiet, Kennedy talked about his job. He chafed a
bit at the
thought that some of the impatient journalists were demanding accomplishment so soon. He simply had not had time to learn as much as he needed to know, to make the firm decisions that he realized must soon be made, to as semble the intricate programs that he had to follow. His ac tion was still reaction. But it would change, he promised. Kennedy dwelled for a minute on the "export of the com munist revolution." This was the challenge before him. "How do you combat guerrillas?" he asked. "That question must be answered." The President's mind wandered back over other crises of other years. For just a fleeting moment he wondered out loud why we did not do more at the time of the Berlin airlift to show the Russians we meant business. Then we had the uncontested military superiority. He asked with no show of his own feeling if Korea should have been "the right war at the
President at
Work
Hi
farther. He right time/' i this country should have gone that he had inherited something that per seemed to imply
earlier. haps could have been controlled by a little boldness There was even then a trace of presidential doubt over
our ability to wage an effective war in Laos. Kennedy remarked on the men around him. "Good men," he said. And he revealed that he had just decided to appoint
John
J.
McCloy and Arthur H. Dean
to
help him with prob
lems of disarmament and nuclear
testing.
Both
men were
tough and independent, he said, not wedded to any previous and for this reason he wanted them. positions, Suddenly the office door flew open. Aide P. Kenneth O'Donnell, the appointments secretary, entered, and with
him came
the sounds of the outside world.
The words were reassuring, but all
the problems remained.
CHAPTER FOUR
COMMANDER
IN CHIEF
JOHN
about a
paused a moment on the phone. about Arleigh Burke being a distin guished combat commander when I was just learning
"What's
this
KENNEDY
PT boat?"
was talking about a brief item which had chided the President for being critical of Burke, who had indulged in a little verbal muscle flexing in an interview granted before
guides on defense state come out a month after Ken nedy's inauguration, and when asked about it at his press
He
Kennedy imposed
stricter policy
ments.
The
interview had
conference, the President had suggested that he was glad he had toughened up. A magazine had pointed out that Burke was steaming to combat fame when Kennedy was a naval offi
cer trainee.
"But the point is," said the mildly irritated President, striking every argument down with swift logic, "that is not
way it is any more." In February of 1961 John Kennedy was commander in chief. And he was a commander in chief with some different ideas one of particular significance: that the United States
America would learn how to combat communism on its terms. Gone was sole reliance on John Foster Dulles' massive retaliation. There was, in Kennedy's words, to be a choice between annihilation and humiliation. The U.S. armed forces were to learn to fight the stealthy guerrilla battles. They were to acquire a new flexibility. There were
of
the
own
Commander
in Chief
it
HQ
new names
the
for
counterinsurgency, paramilitary activity;
meaning was the same. Kennedy had hinted at what was on his mind on that cold January inauguration day. "For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed/' He had added a few more paragraphs in his State of the Union address, which tolled out such grim warnings. "On
the presidential coat of arms, the American eagle holds in his right talon the olive branch, while in his left he holds a
bundle of arrows.
...
intend to give equal attention to both. have, therefore, instructed the Secretary of Defense to
. . .
We
and the ade strategy quacy, modernization and mobility of our present conven tional and nuclear forces and weapons systems in the light of
reappraise our entire defense
/' present and future dangers. And in his special defense message sent to Congress in the closing days of March, he spelled it in clear terms. "We need
.
.
a greater ability to deal with guerrilla forces, insurrections, and subversion. Much of our effort to create guerrilla and antiguerrilla capability has in the past been aimed at general
war.
We must be ready now to
deal with any size of force, in
cluding small externally supported bands of men;
and we must help train local forces to be equally effective. ..." The idea had nagged at Kennedy for months. As with so many Kennedy ideas, there was no moment of truth, when
his
concept of military strategy suddenly dawned;
it
was one
Kennedy notions that grew from common sense, from his awareness of what was happening in the world. Since
of those
we could not use nuclear weapons on

the Laotian jungle, there
had
to be
band of ten men in some other answer,
which
this
nation had not yet found.
The
Dwight
picture of the most famous soldier of our time, David Eisenhower, seated in the Cabinet Room the
left office,
deeply worried about the implaca haunted Kennedy. The map toward which Ike had gestured stared out at him, the thin country a
ble thickets of Laos,
day before he
curving pointed dagger protruding into Asia. In his private moments Kennedy began to talk about para military activities. He asked for and received a photostated
i-
CHAPTER FOUR:
from the French of Cuban Che Guevera's 1950 guerrilla warfare (La Guerra Da Guerrials). He sent for some of the selected works of Chinese Commu
Tse-tung,
translation
book on
also nist
Mao
who
has written
on
guerrilla tactics.
He
wanted to see virtually everything in our own military ar chives on this type of war. Robert McNamara came around with four fat volumes of his own creation that described the new defense directions. This was the reappraisal which the President had asked for. "I've got all that to read?" he asked when he saw the size of the reports. He did not hesitate, however, he read them all. Nothing was too complicated or too simple for him. Only once did he say anything about the material brought to him. When he was presented with a thin green-jacketed booklet
Guerrilla Warfare, the Irish Republican Army, Kennedy laughed, thinking of his own band of Irish politi cians who sometimes were called the "Irish Republican
entitled,
Army," and asked, "That's going a
little far, isn't it?"
concept of guerrilla warfare almost magically became a policy. From the casual talk at his desk, from the reading of the skimpy material, came a new military direction.
The
The immediate problem, of course, was in Southeast Asia, and particularly Laos. From small patrols of rebels (Pathet Lao) who killed at night, the conflict grew into open attack by battalion-sized units. They swept up the northwestern part of the country, fanned out toward the cities. The world suddenly became alarmed. John Kennedy had directed his first worried thoughts to ward the problem in mid-December, when the Soviet airlift of arms had started. Perhaps he had not become concerned enough, but he possessed no power then. The first meeting of his National Security officers had been on Laos on the day after he was inaugurated. From then on, almost no day passed in the White House on which he did not ask some questions about the tiny country 12,000 miles away. Twice daily he received his intelligence briefing, and the strange reports of the stranger warfare fil tered back to Kennedy. Battles were fought and won with
Commander
in Chief
HK
troops firing into the air over the heads of the defenders or in vaders. Corruption, indifference, stupidity plagued nearly
every military and governmental move. In six years the United States had given Laos $310 million in aid, sent in mil
itary
men in mufti
to
help train the Royal Army.
Kennedy called for a neutral Laos, in hopes that the com munists would call off their offensive and would agree to let
the country have peace. His answer was the
whine of com
major deci
munist bullets. In mid-March he reached the

sions.
first
of a chain of
sign of letup appeared in the communist military campaign, indeed just the reverse was true, and the Soviet
No
arms buildup, believed in the White House to be a key ele ment in the offensive, continued unabated. "Who runs this area?" Kennedy asked his military chiefs one day in one of the countless briefings held for him. When he was told that Admiral Harry Felt was the boss, he asked, "What's wrong with bringing him here?" For some reason the military men were reluctant; they had not suggested it themselves. But this was the Kennedy method of action, to which the Pen tagon had not yet adjusted. To the President nothing was bet
ter
than having the

to
man who had been up

talk it over.
against the prob
lem come home and
then Kennedy's military advice had been murky. The Chiefs of Staff did not want to get involved in a war in Laos. The United States armed forces with their megatons of
Up
nuclear blast simply were not equipped for the small fight in Laos. The discouraging history of guerrilla warfare was re
Kennedy. Nearly half a million first-class French had been licked in Indochina. troops It was not a fear of fighting which gave pause to the White House. It was the fear of not being able to fight as we should fight. Our military men had concluded that if we committed troops to battle directly, as we had in Korea, we might again face the Red Chinese. Total victory, if it could ever be achieved, would require the massive air power of this nation and it might mean the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the
cited to
bombing
of southern portions of Red China. World War III haunted further thoughts. If there were other ways out of the
problem, Kennedy intended to find them.
.c.
CHAPTER FOUR:
to talk
to
Again he prodded his advisers. "Wouldn't you like your Pacific Commander?" They sent for Felt. And with him came two army
officers
from the Laotian fighting. 9 Admiral Felt stood in full dress uniform in front of John Kennedy and his chief security aides in the White House and tried, as others before him had done, to make sense out of the situation. But Felt's presentation was not impressive to those in the room. It was a bit pompous and lacked the clarity and detail that the President sought, though perhaps Kennedy at that time wanted answers that could not and did not exist in the Laotian warfare. For two hours the President grilled Felt and the two jungle-war ex went directly into perts. Following this meeting, Kennedy
fresh
On March
another session with his top policy men.

drafted.
meeting a seventeen-point course of action was at propping up the Lao better tians with more and supplies and improved troop training and deployment. The great weakness seemed to
that
At
The program was aimed
Kennedy
they did,
to
be the fact the Laotians would not fight or, when would not fight properly. From the White House
word of the new decisions was sent to Laos, in hopes that it would spur Premier Boun Oum and General Phoumi Nosavan into greater
effort.
One
that
of the facts
Harry Felt had relayed
to
Kennedy was
Phoumi surrounded himself with a
personal guard of his
best trained officers. Kennedy, as did the military men, was anxious to get the trained officers into the field, where they
would do some good. The presidential message to Phoumi was rather stern, in hopes it would create a little action. But in the days that followed, no action came. The daily intelligence reports from Laos read the same. Phoumi had
not been stirred by the Kennedy message. His best continued to stay out of the fighting.
advisers
officers
John Kennedy grew agitated. His questions to his military became more abrupt. He still did not want to upset
by openly criticizing the Laotians. way he chose to operate. In his of
the country or the world Quiet diplomacy was the

fice,
however, he was less serene. "Will the Laotians fight for their country?" he asked at one
Commander
in Chief
A_^_
point, totally puzzled

ures.
by new reports of the Royal Army
fail
"What kind
perts.
of soldiers are they?" he inquired of his ex
Sometimes in his wandering through the White House as he pondered the Laotian problem he would mutter, "This is the worst mess the Eisenhower administration left me."
on Phoumi and on Souvanna Phouma, the exiled premier. He wanted to know more about these strange men. He read every fact he could find on the military situation how it had developed, how the leaders had been chosen.
called for biographies
He
Kennedy was not happy with the advice he received. Later on he would remark that his military planners optimistically developed plans that never seemed to work. There appar
ently was little understanding of the jungle fighting among the Pentagon brass. At one point, for instance, Kennedy was told by his military advisers that it would take the commu
nists three
nists
weeks
to
win
a specified area.
When
the
commu
gobbled it up in three days, the White House wondered if anyone really knew what was happening in Laos.
few more precious days before deciding that Secretary of State Dean Rusk should seek a meeting with Andrei Gromyko, then at the United Nations in New
Kennedy waited
York, to
make
a final stern plea for a neutral Laos.
Gromyko, phone to White House. Kennedy, listening to the report of the Rusk-Gromyko talk, made up his mind that quiet diplomacy would, for the time being, have to be abandoned.
the
approach hit the Soviet wall of silence and coldness. after Rusk finished with he was on the
Again the Minutes
The
President
summoned
his National Security
men
to a
special Monday afternoon meeting; Rusk was absent, off in California giving a speech, but Chester Bowles filled in for him. For nearly two hours the sit
deteriorating military uation was reviewed, the diplomatic avenues open to the United States were explored, the military contingencies were re-examined. The time had come for this country to take a
verbal stand,
if
nothing more. There was no
final decision at
that session. "Let's wait until
Dean Rusk
gets back," said
ô
Kennedy.
CHAPTER FOUR:
He
called for another
meeting on the next day,

in town.
when his
Secretary of State
would be
This one was shorter, lasting about sixty-five minutes. Rusk and McNamara reviewed the plans. "All right/' Ken nedy said, "we must tell the congressional leaders and the
people.'* He thought creases around his eyes
moment
longer, squinting a bit, the deepening as he concentrated. "I
want another day to prepare a statement, so let's have the press conference on Thursday." He phoned Pierre Salinger and asked that the press conference be shifted from Wednes day to Thursday. Then he asked Lyndon Johnson to arrange for the congressional leaders to meet in Lyndon's office for a briefing by Rusk and Allen Dulles the following day. McGeorge Bundy and Chip Bohlen were ordered to begin work on a statement.
23, the day of the press confer draft of the statement was brought in. Kennedy was not satisfied. He rarely is on the first try. He sent Bundy
Thursday morning, March

first
ence, the
and Bohlen back
to work.
By 4:30
that afternoon, the second
draft was ready. This time Kennedy assembled Bundy, Ted Sorensen and Pierre Salinger in his office, and all of them
went over the statement, making suggestions. Kennedy read and reread the paragraphs carefully. Just a few minutes be fore 6 P.M., press-conference air time, he and his aides
ride to the
climbed into the presidential Cadillac for the four-minute New State Department Auditorium. The car was silent Because of the Laotian crisis there had been no time to talk to Kennedy about other questions he might be asked. Salinger handed half a dozen memos to the President, and he
studied these as the car sped the few blocks in the fading light, policemen at every intersection holding back the strain
ing evening traffic. In the meantime the State Department technicians had been frantically at work. They had constructed a three-
paneled display on which they had tacked three six-by-eightfoot maps of Laos, all drawn in light gray-blue, brown, tan and brownish red, the different colors showing the stages of
communist
infiltration
and domination. Lincoln White, the
State Department's press officer, had been assigned the duty of whirling the display as Kennedy referred to the maps.
Commander
in Chief
Hn
maps were
still
Now,
just seconds before air time, the
covered
take
with cloth, and chuckling reporters called, "Take

it off."
it off,
Some 426 reporters, photographers, broadcasters and tech nicians settled in their places; it was the largest gathering that Kennedy had drawn for a press conference.
Kennedy went into an anteroom, where Dean Rusk met They had a quick talk on the Laos statement, and Ken nedy sought a few hasty facts on the trouble then developing over Portugal's Angola. The President found a chair and be gan again to go over his statement. Half a minute past 6 P.M. the knock came on the door; it was time for Kennedy to go into the auditorium. He did not move. He was then on the
him.
fourth page of the seven-page statement. He read the last three pages a final time before he sprang up. With the flat of
his
palm he took
pressed down.
He
a swipe at his forelock to make sure it was walked through the auditorium door, and
the correspondents rose. As he strode across the expanse of carpeting toward the speaker's stand, photographers
crouched and clicked their shutters rapidly. Oddly, he wore a vest with his dark-gray suit, one of the few times he has so appeared in public. His shirt was a light tan and his thin tie with the small knot was gray. Most of his Florida tan had faded, yet he looked alert. He neither smiled nor frowned but had an enigmatic expression that he always
seemed to wear when he crossed the moat of carpeting to stare at the American citizenry. Each reporter interpreted the expression as he wanted, and frequently opposite views of the Kennedy mood were expressed in the next day's papers.
Then Kennedy
gave a slight smile of recognition to report
ers in the front rows.
He placed
his papers
to
on the walnut
ros
trum and smoothed them down. Kennedy read quickly. "I want
about Laos. Laos goes back
. .
.
make a
brief statement
powers Laos was one of the new states which had recently emerged from the French Union and it was the clear premise of the 1954 settlement that this new country would be neutral
free of external
special concern with the problem in to 1954. That year at Geneva a large group of agreed to a settlement of the struggle for Indochina.
Our
domination by anyone."
CHAPTER FOUR:
Kennedy leaned forward on both arms in his urgency to say contained contending fac just right. "The new country real first in its but tions, years progress was made towards a But the efforts of a communiststatus. neutral unified and
it
dominated group
"First,
to destroy this neutrality
never ceased.
we strongly and unreservedly support the goal of a neutral and independent Laos. "Secondly, if there is to be a peaceful solution, there must be a cessation of the present armed attacks by externally sup ported communists. If these attacks do not stop, those who
.
.
support a truly neutral Laos will have to consider their re

sponse.
The
shape of this necessary response
will, of course,
be carefully considered, not only here in Washington, but in the SEATO conference with our allies, which begins next
Monday
."
Kennedy lowered his head, looked into the cameras. "No one should doubt our resolution on this point. We will not be provoked, trapped, or drawn into this or any other sit
.
.
know that every American will want his country obligations to the point that freedom and secu rity of the free world and ourselves may be achieved." Done with his statement, Kennedy called for the regular
uation; but
to
I
honor
its
press-conference questions. In half an hour the time was up, and he walked quickly back out the door. Dean Rusk met
him and
said
congratulated
him on
little.
He dropped
the Laos statement. Kennedy back in the chair in the small room,
and for a few silent minutes he watched NBC broadcasters David Brinkley and Chet Huntley discuss the press confer ence. In the dark, John Kennedy returned to the White House. Kennedy's words were far more stern than his intentions just then. If the communists had launched a major offensive that genuinely threatened the cities of Laung Prabang and Vientiane, and thus the entire country, he probably would have sent in American fighting troops despite all the disad vantages. But he was not yet convinced that matters were so desperate, and he was determined to try to talk the Pathet Lao out of a war before involving American troops. Russian reaction to his television speech came the next day at a luncheon table in New York. Soviet Foreign Minister
Commander
in Chief
gj
to return
Andrei Gromyko, who had been scheduled diately to Moscow, sought out United States
imme
UN Ambassador
Adlai Stevenson on the day before his departure. At lunch he asked for an appointment with Kennedy, saying that he had a
message from Nikita Khrushchev. In talking to Stevenson, Gromyko said that Moscow shared this country's desire for an
independent and neutral Laos and expressed the hope that such a solution could be reached. It was a first "hopeful sign/'
in
American diplomatic parlance. Stevenson phoned Wash ington immediately, and the meeting was set for the follow ing Monday, March 27.
But even before that time another matter had to be straightened out. As Kennedy sought allies for whatever ac tion might be needed in Laos, he had naturally turned to Great Britain. He had received sympathy but little else at first. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had cabled Kennedy that Britain would give this nation its "moral" support in whatever we decided to do. This was not enough for Ken nedy. Since the Prime Minister was in Bermuda, the Presi dent decided on his first major meeting with an allied head of state. Arrangements were made to meet in Key West on the following Sunday. Kennedy flew to Palm Beach on Saturday, and on Sunday morning he was standing on the warm apron of Boca Chica field, waiting for Macmillan's jet Comet to land, the plane having detoured around Cuba on its way up. At first the British and American teams met separately, to get their papers in order. Then they met together in a
severely functional
in the Navy base's headquarters reason for the meeting was to let building. important Macmillan get a look at Kennedy, so that he would be reas
room
An
sured that the President of the United States was no rash kid
But Kennedy's main mission was to seek actual military support from Britain in case intervention in Laos became necessary. Macmillan was reluctant. At one point in the conversation he remarked calmly about the course an engagement in Laos might take, "When the others stop cheering, you and I will be out there alone." Yet Kennedy did get what he sought. Macmillan did agree to commit a Commonwealth force if in-
who would throw
the world into a war.
gg
CHAPTER FOUR:
tervention became necessary. They talked about other troubles, but not too seriously. There was lunch in the white cottage that Harry Truman
had made famous when he used
to vacation in
Key West. And
as they prepared to depart, Macmillan kidded the President a bit about Cuba. 'I'll fly over Cuba," he said. "If they shoot
me down, you can have your incident."

ally was willing, another was reluctant. Back in French Ambassador Herve Alphand was waiting Washington at the airport for Kennedy's jet. He carried a letter from de Gaulle. At the President's invitation, Alphand climbed into
if
But
one
the presidential limousine as
it
sped through the darkness to
ward the White House. Kennedy ripped open the letter, read it hastily in the car. It said that under no circumstances would France join in armed intervention in Laos.
The
tulip trees
around the White House grounds were
just
of tourists clung to the iron fence, burgeoning. and a warm sun bathed Washington in spring languor the fol lowing Monday. Just six minutes before noon a motorcycle officer, flashing
his
The waves
two red lights, turned off Pennsylvania Avenue and en White House yard. Behind him came a 1956 black Cadillac. It moved quietly up the drive and braked in front
tered the
of the executive wing.
Some
seventy-five
newsmen and cameramen
jostled
on
the
front-door stoop. President Kennedy's military aide, Chester Clifton, stood waiting for the guest. Out hopped Andrei
Gromyko, behind him came Ambassador Mikhail MenshiGromyko, with only a slight smile, gripped Clifton's hand and headed immediately for the door. He was in a som ber black suit and black hat. The three men walked quickly through the lobby and down the corridor to the President's
kov.
office.
There were no surprises in the Oval Office, where Dean Rusk and Adlai Stevenson also waited. Professions of a strong
Soviet desire for peace in Laos poured from Gromyko. The Soviets wished to work for a truly neutral nation. Kennedy
outlined again the history of the small nation and the need for neutrality. Then suddenly he suggested that just the two
Commander
of
in Chief
go
his office
them go
for a
walk in the Rose Garden outside
windows. The grass was beginning to freshen in the spring sun. A white bench on the other side of the small panel of middle of the garden looked inviting. The two grass in the men strolled through the spring air, Kennedy with his hands
in his pockets. Then they sat on the bench. In the twenty min utes they were alone Kennedy did most of the talking. He told
had come from misjudgments of others' intentions, and he warned him not to miscalculate the will or the fiber of this country. We would not, he said, sit idly by and see the communists sweep up the land in Southeast Asia. To misread his intentions would be a grave error. Gromyko did not say much. Caroline came
Gromyko
that
many
of the wars in the past
bounding out of the house, Jackie behind her. Kennedy intro duced his wife to the Russian, then they sat again and talked. At 12:40 the meeting was over, and newsmen were herded out on the White House drive where the TV microphones
had been set up. Gromyko pushed through the journalists and halted before the cameras. He fingered the brim of his black hat nervously. Though he knew English, he spoke slowly in Russian, his translator writing frantically on a pad,
then carefully giving
"useful
it
in English.
Gromyko
called the talks
and
interesting/*
"Naturally the question of Laos was touched upon," he said. "The President and I after our conversation expressed
the hope that possibilities
would be found
of settling the
Laotian question peacefully." What about a cease fire? "We touched in conversation on
this subject. I
With two
the familiar
his car
have nothing to say at this moment publicly." short choppy waves of his right hand, not unlike
Kennedy campaign gesture, Gromyko walked to and disappeared into the Pennsylvania Avenue traffic. For all the drama of these days, the Laotian problem was still cloudy. No one knew the Russian intentions, and Amer ica's own mind, despite Kennedy's words, was not under
stood.
The mighty
U.S. Seventh Fleet,
its
battle, its aircraft in operating fettle,
Marines primed for steamed into the South
China Sea. The ships hunkered there, gray and threatening. But the Pathet Lao cared little about power at sea. They
CHAPTER FOUR:
84
marched on. And the United States did nothing. Only John Kennedy's phrases were thrown at the enemy. Had the United States resolve slipped? Where was the
Kennedy courage? For the first time editorial criticism devel oped. He was scolded by certain pundits for talking tough,
then not acting tough
in fact, not acting at
all.
Faith in this
country had been destroyed in Southeast Asia, some said. How could Thailand or Vietnam or other allies again take our word? While Kennedy's reluctance to send United States troops into Laos was evident, it was not endless. While Kennedy was
attempting a
bluff,
it
was a limited
bluff.
Despite the military
disadvantages, despite this country's relative lack of
prepar
Kennedy in the weeks of April con cluded that he might have to commit fighting troops in Laos if the communists swept on dangerously toward Vientiane,
edness for guerrilla war,
the one city which the President felt could not fall. He did not draw a line beyond which the communists
would run the
risk of
war with the United
States.
Plans for
the formless type of war being fought in Laos had to be form less themselves. Too much depended on circumstance, on
what might happen at the given moment. The broad scheme of action finally developed was called "Plan Five/' because in the end five nations had agreed to send in troops if it became necessary the United States, Great Britain, Thailand, the Philippines and Pakistan. The
plan called for troops first to move into positions in the Me kong River Valley to relieve Laotian Royal Army units, al lowing them to go to the front for direct combat. If the
enemy
still
that there was
came on, John Kennedy had made up his mind no other choice but to fight. It was his first de
cision to use force.
ever arrived, it would have been primarily a United States fight. The President had generally been disappointed in the response of the allies to his pleas.
the critical
stan President
Had
moment
But there were a few reasuring moments. For instance, Paki Ayub Khan, a tough old soldier himself,
brushed aside the idea of sending only a token force; if Paki stan fought in Laos, she would do it right. Ayub promised Kennedy 5,000 of his best troops. Kennedy never forgot this
Commander
act of faith.
after that,
in Chief
O^
Whenever Ayub wanted to talk to the President Kennedy was ready to listen. When Ayub visited
the United States the following July, he was given a state din ner on the lawn of Mount Vernon, the most glamorous social
affair of the administration's first year.
Laos in the last days of April simmered in a confusing mix ture of jungle fighting and calls for a cease fire. Kennedy and Macmillan had asked for a cease fire to be followed by a fourteen-nation conference and eventual coalition government in cluding members of the Pathet Lao. But apparently rather
than submit to the Anglo-American

diate cease
fire,
demand
for the
imme
Moscow
called for talks forthwith
and said
vaguely that the Laotian belligerents should work out their
own cease fire.

nists also
But there were hints from the Kremlin that the commu wanted to give up the messy business. Nikita Khru shchev said to Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson, "If we all keep our heads and do nothing provocative, we can find a way
out of our problems in Laos." For further confusion one only had to turn to Vientiane itself. Along the Mekong River there were foot races, boxing
and wrestling matches. At night the temple courtyards were filled with dancing girls. A torchlight parade wound through the city, and the best floats were those of the Royal Army. The celebration was in honor of the eleventh anniversary of the founding of the army, and most of the troops had been pulled back from the field to celebrate. Though the troops looked fit and eager as they paraded, the army warned the people not to wander outside the city for fear of the Pathet
Lao. 1
happened: from Laos came word of a tenuous both sides to stop shooting to seek a truce. It agreement by was the thinnest kind of promise, and in the weeks to follow it nearly vanished as fighting continued, as the communists
3
it
On May
captured more ground. But eventually a vague, unsettled peace did prevail. For the time being, at least, John Kennedy
had stopped the

i
offensive with words.
Only a little less confusing was an American phenomenon. As Kennedy waded deeper into the Laotian mystery, his popularity in the nation went up. In April, some 73 per cent of the voters thought John Kennedy was doing a good job of running the country.
CH A P
TE R FI VE
SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS

while Laos bubbled, John Kennedy could not forget any of his other problems. Beneath the more
politics
EVEN
glamorous burdens of international

fights,
were the
difficult
everyday garden-variety political than that in New York State.
none more
Most of the Democratic faithful in the fifty states of the union on the day of November 9, when that thin margin of victory was finally established, relaxed a bit and went quietly on planning what federal patronage should come their way. For the most part the Kennedy brothers, who were the chief spoils dispensers, did not argue much. The Kennedy workers generally knew what the Kennedys wanted and made recom mendations in line with these wants.
When the Kennedys asked for the patronage nominations from the state chairmen, they did not make any promises, but politics and the Kennedys being one, if the nominations were good, the chances were excellent the men would get the jobs.
patronage leverage of the federal government is prob in terms of political power. The population of overrated ably this country is too big now, and too many voters are needed
The
swing an election, the president is too far removed from the state organizations, for any vast machine to be welded from the federal jobs which can be handed out. Yet to a key
to
state
area
is
or county chairman the say-so on a factor in his political stature.

of Agriculture
who
gets
what in
his
The Department
had an estimated 500 ap-
gw
pointive jobs. There were openings for 190 United States marshals and United States attorneys. The Defense Depart
ment had some 200 jobs around the country that a new administration could appoint. There were 200 U.S. Savings Bond Administrators, 1 1 Bureau of the Mint officials, 52 cus toms collectors and controllers. There were bank examiners, judges, civil defense administrators and so on. Most of the state recommendations came in on time. But not from New York. Its party hierarchy was fragmented. Only the common effort of electing John Kennedy had held any semblance of a party together in New York before the election. Within hours after the Kennedy victory, the volatile mix had blown up. Nobody would work with anybody else. The state party was headed by Mike Prendergast, who was Carmine DeSapio's choice, which on paper made Carmine top Democrat. But the Kennedys had tiptoed around Car mine whenever they could, for a number of reasons, among them the fact that Carmine and his dark glasses reeked of
big-city bossism,
when possible, although

For the
five
something the New Frontier liked to avoid it was not always possible.
after his election
Kennedy adopted a that some hands-off attitude toward New York. kind of political Messiah would appear and get the party back together or that at least a strong man would come forth who could dump Mike Prendergast and perhaps DeSapio to boot. Kennedy waited and nothing happened; the situation
months
He hoped
got worse.
Yorkers dawdled more over patronage. When they names to the National Committee in Wash submitted finally Bob ington, Kennedy took one look at the list and found most
New
recommendations unacceptable to the New Frontier. This message was flashed back to New York in Bob's own for the ap style, which was simply to go looking elsewhere
of the
pointees.
Democratic National Chairman John M. Bailey, Larry O'Brien and Bob Kennedy began to submit names of New Yorkers which they got from the congressional Democrats. Still there was no visible effect. The squabbling between the
five
als,
New York City borough presidents got worse. The liber under former Senator Herbert Lehman and Mrs. Elea-
gg
CHAPTER FIVE:
nor Roosevelt, declared their own war, and Mayor Robert Wagner proclaimed himself the anointed one. Prendergast and DeSapio yelled more loudly about their political rights. Finally, in a sequence that resembled a Marx Brothers
movie, DeSapio & Co. came down to Washington for a private seance with John Bailey. Carmine and Herbert Koehler, bor
ough leader from Queens, and Joseph McKinney of Staten and rain to meet Bailey. Joseph came Sharkey (Brooklyn) by train, having less faith in air travel, particularly in bad weather. Bronx leader Charlie Buckley had developed a mysterious virus disease and stayed home in bed. Strangely he had been the lone and staunch Kennedy supporter from the onset of the campaign. For an hour and a half they talked with Bailey, who told them precisely what they thought he would: if the borough leaders would get their own situation straightened out and come up with an acceptable list of patronage candidates, the Kennedys would do business with them. Once the message from the White House had been deliv
Island flew through fog
ered, the four
men
sped through the rain to Congressman
Emanuel
the
New
Committee headquarters, where York Democratic congressional delegation was as

Celler's Judiciary
sembling.
Carmine described the meeting with John Bailey to report ers as "informative, interesting and very satisfactory in
every way/'
"There was a bottle of scotch that was very interesting," chimed in Koehler. Carmine glanced nervously at his com
panion.
"I hope they have food here/' continued Koehler. haven't eaten."
"I
discussed patronage with Bailey, said De Sapio, ignoring Koehler, but that had been only the second ary reason.
They indeed had
What was the primary reason, someone asked. "The good of the administration/' said DeSapio sweetly. "Did you ever see a politician that wasn't interested in pa
tronage?" snorted Koehler, as the committee door.
Carmine
steered
him toward
All this proved to the Kennedys exactly what they had
gq ^7
Not only was there a lack of the kind of talent they sought in the existing New York party ap but DeSapio's bunch were not planning on changing paratus,
learned from the campaign.
Kennedys could find no solution until New York Mayor Robert Wagner won re-election over the bosses' opposition in the fall and took shaky command of the
their style. Still the
party.
New York State was an exception, fortunately. There xvere small patronage sore spots all over, particularly in Ohio, Ne braska, Vermont and California, but for the most part the
handed out without trouble. The Kennedys made no secret of the fact that they liked Democrats who had been Democrats throughout the cam paign, and they liked friends of Democrats who had been
jobs were
Democrats.
Under
nedy
the watchful eyes of Bailey and O'Brien, the Ken appointments were squeezed for every bit of political
Once a name had been settled upon, the technique was to check immediately with every Democrat connected with the man. The list often included six layers senator, governor, congressman, state chairman, national committeegoodwill.
men and committeewomen, and county chairman. Some times Bailey and O'Brien even made sure the ward boss
knew what was coming.
For those of both parties who had watched the Eisenhower
administration frequently ignore the Republican party ma chinery, the change was welcome. Politics was back in style.
GOP
senators
and congressmen sometimes during the
eight Eisenhower years used to pick up the paper and learn for the first time of new White House appointees in their
states.
One
veteran professional Republican employed by the
Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee sighed with envy as he watched the appointments being made. "They're passing out the jobs to the party workers," he said. "That's the way it should be done. I'm for it. If we'd done
it,
GOP
they wouldn't be here now." But Kennedy searched beyond the ranks of the party
called into service.
to
fill
many of the secondary jobs. The Kennedy friends were
From San
QQ
new
President's.
CHAPTER FIVE:
Francisco came Paul B. (Red) Fay, a wartime
chum
of the
Fay was appointed Under Secretary of the his Navy, primary qualification being a four-year hitch in PT boats, just like Kennedy. Earl E. T. Smith, a Florida golfing companion of the Ken
nedy family and a former ambassador to Cuba, was slated to be ambassador to Switzerland, but the name leaked out and
the Swiss objected.
dropped Smith,
Though angered by the leak, Kennedy who in his Cuba days had been far too
him
credit
friendly with Batista to do
now.
John Seigenthaler, former Nashville, Tennessee, reporter and friend of Bob Kennedy's, who helped Bob on his book The Enemy Within, was named Bob's administrative assist ant. David Hackett, a Milton Academy friend of Bob's, took
over a
new
division of juvenile delinquency in the Justice
Department.
On
Capitol Hill the
Kennedy team found
talent.
A total of
thirty-nine people who had been employed in congressional procedures, many as administrative assistants to senators and
congressmen, answered the call of the executive branch. Unfortunate political candidates swarmed into Washing ton after being tossed out back home. Those governors who
could not succeed themselves and other state politicians who had fallen into disfavor looked to the east for a job. Orville
Freeman, former governor of Minnesota, got top prize in his Secretary of Agriculture, he had Cabinet rank. Iowa's former Governor Herschel Loveless, defeated in his bid for the Senate, was named a member of the Renegotiation
class: as
Board. Kansas' George Docking, defeated for a third gu bernatorial term, became a member of the Board of Direc
tors of the Export-Import Bank. J. Allen Frear, senator from Delaware struck down by the voters, joined the Securities and Exchange Commission. Former Congressman George McGovern, who had unsuccessfully challenged South Da kota's Karl E. Mundt for the Senate, was appointed Director of the Food for Peace Program.
cians
The young, who had
relatively
unknown, cadre
of
amateur
politi
labored so effectively for Kennedy in the
cam
paign were rewarded whenever possible. Joseph Tydings, son of the former senator of Maryland, got the U.S. Attorney's
that state as a reward for being co-ordinator for the job in
Kennedys in Delaware and Florida.

Ivan A. Nestingen, mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, an swered the call to Washington, became Under Secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare. Jerry Bruno,
who had been
an advance
trail,
Kennedy along that endless campaign was placed in the Department of Labor. Bill Daniel,
man
for
the brother of the governor of Texas, Price Daniel,
became
the
new governor
ifornia's
Guam. Fred Dutton, former aide to Cal Governor Pat Brown, who had worked hard in the
of
campaign on the Citizens for Kennedy and Johnson drive,

joined the White House staff. When the Kennedys could, they liked to soothe sectional
feeling
and angle
for special favor
on
the Hill.
The new
Truman
also
Under Secretary of Agriculture was Charlie Murphy, former aide and a native of North Carolina, the state which
produced Congressman Harold Cooley, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.
There
also existed in the
Kennedy
portfolio of patronage
something which became known around the National Com mittee as "a walk through the bank/' from an old legend
be seen in the bank lobby with J. P. Morgan was enough to assure a man's credit. So it was in its own way with the Kennedys. The friendly handshake with the new presi
that to
dent in front of photographers or discreet stories about work ing with the new administration were enough to increase the
for a man's talents. Attorney Clifford became an even larger legal figure in Washington when his intimacy with the New Frontier became known. A Nashville
demand
young
lawyer
named John
J.
Hooker found
that the citizens of his
he was photo graphed coming out of Kennedy's front door in the pregood
city took a far greater interest in
him
after
inauguration days.
CHA PTER SIX
HOME NOTES
THE
since
kept shining through. With young peo ple in a young age in the White House, the somber tones of the world could not color everything.
glitter
When Jackie gave a party in mid-March for her sister,

cess Stanislaus Radziwill,
Prin
nobleman now
and her husband, a former Polish London, those social historians In the capital were overwhelmed again. "It was," breathed one of them heavily, "the greatest thing
in business in
Andy Jackson."
one par
"It was the gayest evening I've ever had," sighed

ticipant.
guests seventy-two of them began arriving about for cocktails, and they came through the rear and private 8:30
The
entrance. There in the flesh were the
Aga Khan,
the Vice
President of the United States, a small, smart selection of United States senators, high society and a cross-section of the
rest of
ciety tote boards
Washington. From that moment the city's official so began to be changed. This was the group
that mattered. Since the party was not an official occasion, there were no obligatory guests. These were the people the
Kennedys wanted around them for a long gay evening. It was long. The strains of Lester Lanin's New York
soci
ety orchestra reverberated through the Blue, Red and Green Rooms until after 3 A.M. The handsome couples, in black tie
and long gowns, danced and sipped champagne and gathered
Home
in
Notes
warm
clusters to talk
about the great adventure in govern
ment.
Jackie, in a white sleeveless sheath,
ful. Her sister, Lee, with her long dark hair loose back, was equally striking in a red brocade gown.
was exquisitely beauti down her
small
in the State Dining Room, where nine round tables were set for eight guests each. There was no formal White House protocol to hinder movement or squelch
The dinner was
laughter or ease. It was just fun. The diners nibbled at their chicken, drank fine wines. Strolling musicians went from table to table to play. The first
couple started the dancing, then they split and for the rest of
Andy Jackson For the Kennedy society blended the rich with those of modest means, the titled with the untitled. There were plain shirt-sleeve reporters, artists, federal bu reaucrats, nobility and remnants from the international set. The irreverent chuckled a bit the next day when the Presi dent showed up for work with a small bandage over his left eye and hastily explained he had banged his forehead when
might well have
liked.
the evening went from partner to partner. It was, in fact, the kind of evening that
he stooped to pick up a toy for Caroline. But nobody seemed to mind.
There was some United States government glitter, too. For the Italians, Kennedy put on striped pants, and for the Irish he wore a green necktie. He was the featured speaker at the centennial celebration of Italian unification, which included the red-coated Marine band, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Miss Renata TebaldL Jackie came along, wearing a pale green outfit that reeked of
an extraordinary fact in history that so much of what we are, and so much of what we believe had its origin in this rather small spear of land stretching into the Mediterranean/* the President told the thousand celebrants. "All in a great sense that we fight to preserve today had its origins in Italy, " and earlier than that in Greece. The very next morning it was St. Patrick's Day, and
.
.
spring. "It is
Kennedy, wearing a green
tie,
greeted Irish Ambassador
Q4 Thomas
tree
CHAPTER
J.
Six:
Kiernan
at his door.
The ambassador had brought
and a brief Kennedy family Kennedy done on handsomely heavy parchment and fitted into a stained-oak box. After the ambassador had read a short poem
along the
in Gaelic at the President's request,
coat of arms
own native
House
the
Kennedy replied in his tongue. "Listen, Ambassador, that's terrific." For some fifty-five congressmen summoned to the White
in the
first
of a
round of
special receptions a little of
glamour was left over. Tea and coffee were billed as the official drinks, but a quiet word to one of the waiters pro duced bolder stimulants. The curious could go to look at the
President's
press
office,
the insistent could corner the President and
political requests on him. Kennedy came with equipped pencil and pad to take notes. "In the four years I've been here I'd only been in the
their
White House
it
twice/' said
was over. "And
I've never
one Republican congressman when been in the President's office.

for the
I
first
They showed me that. I got to see the putting green time. They even pointed out the swimming pool.
liked
it."
President posed for pictures with small groups of the legislators. Jackie came down for a quick tour through the
The
group.
So at
home
that he climbed
did Ohio's Republican William H. Ayres feel on a new tricycle, a gift left for Caroline, and
sped down the red-carpeted hall something, it was safe to say, he had not done in Eisenhower's tenure in office.
Home
life
the
life
of Jack, Jackie, Caroline
and John,
as the
Jr.
intrigued the American public almost as
much
new
government. There developed a silent struggle between the press and Jackie Kennedy, who had decreed the first family's
private affairs off limits for most reporters and photogra phers. But the readers were insatiable. picture of Jackie on
the cover of a magazine, a
word glimpse
of family life in the
White House, sent circulation soaring. There had never been a couple like this in the White House. Jack Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier, though not bona fide members of international society, at least had hov ered on the fringes now and then. Their nomadic lives, their
Home
Notes
QK
separateness
phenomenon
of great wealth
was not fully
understood by the public, which clung to its older ideas of married life. It could be argued that the Kennedys were a branch of the
jet set,
people of means and inclination who roamed the by plane more easily than the financial lords of the East Coast used to go to Newport around the turn of
world's resorts
the century.
The Kennedys, as wealthy as any of them and wealthier than most, added their own peculiar wrinkles. They owned their own resorts in Hyannis Port and Palm Beach (and rented one in Antibes, France) and now they had their own
Boeing 707, something that no other members of the
could approach.
the
jet set
In the winter Jackie stayed in Palm Beach for weeks. In summer she inhabited Hyannis Port. On other week ends
she went to Glen

to
Ora
in the Virginia
New York were
often
made alone
hunt country. Her trips or with her sister, Prin
cess Radziwill.
In the months ahead she would vacation in
Greece and Italy sans husband. Since Jackie did not like political rallies or football games, the President went to these with male friends.
was an exotic life, which raised the national eyebrow a bit, and there were a spate of jokes about it. ("Good night, Mrs. Kennedy, wherever you are.") Though Eleanor Roo sevelt could not be catalogued as a homebody, she had been a vital part of the New Deal itself. Both Bess Truman and
It
Mamie
Eisenhower, solid midwestern products, stayed close
to the hearthside.
These three
women
were the comparative
standards.
There were
Jackie's dazzling
Oleg Cassini creations and
her vivid Pucci pants, which fit her lithe figure snugly, as they were supposed to. She disliked hats but liked bouffant
hairdos. She
jazz.
swam, rode, water-skiied, golfed and listened to She liked color and gaiety and new ideas. Her style was
to live
American modern. But she liked

past.
among
things of the
that
There was a stratum of whispered cocktail conversation

insisted the
ries
Kennedy marriage was
in trouble, but those sto

1953,
had been around since the day they were married in
,Q g
CHAPTERSlX:
as similar reports had plagued previous presidents. Both
Ken
nedys would confess early adjustment difficulties in their mar riage, as in most marriages, and there were still obvious tests of will, as in most marriages. But the fact was that as time went on the marriage grew stronger. Those who knew them well found the proper amounts of devotion and respect.
They did not indulge in public displays of emotion, much to the disappointment of the photographers. And they tried to keep their special gifts to each other private matters,
though they were not always successful because of publicityconscious shopkeepers. Their life, however, was, and always would be, a far shot from the pattern in the typical American
bungalow. But there were mighty few bungalow denizens who, with the Kennedy millions, wouldn't change houses, clothes, migratory habits and maybe even friends. As a matter of fact, had anybody bothered to calculate how much time John Kennedy got to spend with his family, he might have been surprised to learn it was as much as the average medium- to high-income man. Kennedy worked and lived in the same place. He saw his family at breakfast; he sometimes was escorted to his office by Caroline. She, her mother and brother often toured the west wing during work ing hours to say hello. Kennedy lunched with them, and his commute from office to sitting room at night was at the most three or four minutes. On summer week ends he would fly to Hyannis Port on Friday nights, to remain until Monday morn ings. In mobile America many jobs sent fathers and husbands away from families more than John Kennedy was away from
his family.
The White House

its
symbolism
as its effect
not so much at first frightened Jackie on people and families. It was like
in,
all
a combination of a hotel and a prison. Once you walked you did not come out again for four or eight years, and
the time you were there, people stared at you through the iron fence. She had been despondent for a while about losing her anonymity at the age of 32. She had worried about pro
tecting her children from the effect of being the most famous kids in the nation. She drew herself inward to meet the chal
lenge.
She adopted the White House as her project, deliberately
Home
Notes
Q^
shunning a worldly role. She felt compassion for women who could not find enough in their husbands to stimulate them
and interest them so that they themselves had to seek power and dominance. She worried about the little things, too; the
President's openness with the press
and the public bothered
was he destroying too much of the "presiden tial aura"? Should he not be more reserved, less exposed? She disliked the term "First Lady" and wanted to be known as
her at
first
Mrs. Kennedy. She was annoyed at the time she had to spend getting her hair fixed for official functions. And she wondered
fall out from all the setting and drying ("I be bald a in she may year/' laughed). She found a five-year of red-white-and-blue match books in the White House supply cupboards. She wanted plain white match books with "White
if
her hair would
House" written
pause when
across them,
she remembered,
shot."
and it gave her momentary "The White House budget for
matches
with other problems, she worked this one out. Little by little, adjustment came. In fact, in the months ahead there were times when she would thoroughly
is
But
as
enjoy
it.
And certainly her husband did already.
HA
TE R
SEVEN
THE CORPS
the election Charles
L.
Bartlett,
Kennedy's
ATER
friend and counselor
who introduced
the President
elect to his wife, had shown up in Palm Beach as a week-end guest. Nothing would have been unusual about such a visit had Bartlett not been Washington correspondent for the Chat tanooga Times.
The White House

newsmen
different
press corps suddenly took notice. The nervously concluded that things were going to be
under Kennedy than they had been under Eisen

held a kind of tender dislike for
hower,
who had
newsmen
and
tried to avoid them.
Reporters like extremes in high news sources. Those
who
shun the press provide
collective protection.
in.
Nobody
beaten since nobody gets
Those men who
gets will talk to
everybody offer the same protection in reverse. Nobody gets beaten because everybody gets in. But the selective news source who talks to some but not to all shatters this group
serenity.
talk to
Obviously Kennedy and his family were going to newsmen, and they were going to do it selectively.
On one occasion before Kennedy took office, The New York Times' Bill Lawrence was summoned to the Kennedy house to get an exclusive story from Ambassador Kennedy on
the sale of the President-elect's stock holdings; there bumped into United Press International's
and while Merriman Mr. ("Thank you, President") Smith out in quest of an in-
The Corps
QQ
terview with the presidential brother-in-law, Peter Lawford. Once the New Frontier entered the White House, Press
Secretary Pierre Salinger joked that he had to drop into the President's office in order to see reporters. No corner of the building seemed to be off limits. Journalists invaded the
swimming pool, the projection room, the presidential bed room upon invitation, of course. They came either as friends or in a vague in-between status which Kennedy es
tablished with some reporters in which they were blended into the domestic scene or into social activities, so that Ken
nedy could save time by talking to them while he went about his other pursuits.
On some
ers
days
more
reporters
offices to talk
with
staff
went into the White House members than did government work
who had come on federal matters.

Kennedy, watching and guiding national opinion was
To
part of his job. In the very early days of the administration The New York Times' Washington Bureau Chief, James B.
(Scotty) Reston, at a
luncheon with Salinger advised that
it
would be unwise for Kennedy to grant exclusive audiences to favored newsmen. Salinger's reply was that Kennedy would see whom he pleased, when he pleased and for whatever rea sons he pleased. This doctrine, while it was an open-door
policy,
was not really an open-news policy. first weeks there were other clues about New Fron tier information ideas. Admiral Arleigh Burke, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, found that a speech he had written
In the
urging a more aggressive stance in the cold war was dumped back in his lap with orders to rewrite it and take out the harsh phrases. The speech was scheduled for the night be
fore the
ion,
RB-47 flyers were to be released by the Soviet Un and the White House feared Burke's talk might snag the release. For different reasons other brass in the Pentagon
wanted
flect
experienced similar alterations in speeches. While Kennedy his officials to be seen and heard, this did not mean
that they had license in their talk. the Kennedy thinking.
They were expected
to re
Kennedy's ire over news leaks was felt swiftly by a num ber of people. In the transition period a speculative list of
ambassadorial appointments appeared in
The New York
IQQ
cusable. In
CHAPTER SEVEN:
this leak was inex most of the cases neither the men nor the countries had been consulted and this sort of premature release caused
Times under Reston's by-line. To Kennedy
many more difficulties in the delicate business of finding the right men for the right embassies. Kennedy's anger flared when he read the paper. His own intimate knowledge of re porters and their sources enabled him to narrow the possible
two men. Talking on the phone to one of the another matter, Kennedy let off steam about the news leak, knowing that even if this was not the man re sponsible, the presidential mood would be transmitted to the guilty party in short order. "I don't understand it," he fretted. "Why can't these men just say they don't know?" To explain the new administration's news policies, Pierre Salinger naturally was chosen and packed off to Chicago, where he spoke to the Publicity Club on March 8. "It has been said and rightly so that secrecy is the first refuge of incompetents," Salinger told his audience. "Any admin istration which allows free access to information is also going to reveal to the public internal debate on policy. This is inevitable. Yet, does America really want policy to be ar rived at by unanimous vote? I think not. Once policy
offenders to
men about
is
arrived
at,
however, with everyone having their

the necessity
is
say,
then in
my opinion
there for complete support of this What policy by all spokesmen for the administration. is further needed here, I feel, are a set of definitions. For
. . .
not license and freedom is not without obliga But what of freedom of information? Does this freedom give the right to imperil our nation to aid those
is
freedom
tion
.
who oppose
freedom of information
us in the world, to endanger our security? Is to become an excuse for inaccurate
or sloppy reporting or for the encouragement of the leaking

of highly confidential and classified government documents? I think not. I am cognizant of the fact that the mere fact I
make
attack
these statements here today will again subject me to from those who believe no line can or should be
drawn. But
to
I do not agree with them and the more I come understand the maximum perils of today's world and our
it,
role in
the
my
premise.
more convinced I become ... I am a strong advocate
of the validity of of freedom of in-
The Corps
formation
than
it
within the confines of national security.
Access to information at the

has ever been before.
White House today
is
freer
The
people of this country are
getting a dimension of the presidency they have never re But I will not idly sit by while officials ceived before.
.
leak information to the press which either endangers our na tional security or is an outright distortion of the position of a
highly responsible government
official/'
Kennedy had some built-in protective news devices. It be came embarrassingly apparent very early that a decision in
the
New
Frontier could not be called a decision until John

finally
pronounced it. Eisenhower had tended recommendations of his department and accept agency heads more than Kennedy. Thus, a glimpse of a new program or a hint of a new appointment from a Cabinet officer was likely to be solid news in the Eisenhower days. But now the final word on all major matters had to come from the Oval Office. Journalistic speculation tended to subside when one pub
to
Kennedy had
the
list of proposed ambassadorial appointees proved, the appointments were finally made, to be more than 50 per cent in error. New York attorney Fowler Hamilton was listed in cold print as the man who would replace Allen
lished
when
Dulles as head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Eisen hower's former Atomic Energy Commission Chairman John
McCone actually got that job, and Hamilton became the boss of Kennedy's new Foreign Aid Agency, which some jour nalists had already given to New York investment banker
George D. Woods, who was later appointed head of World Bank. It was dangerous journalistic business
the
to
plunge too deeply. True, the story might be correct at the moment it went to press, but a Kennedy decision could change course startlingly in the final hours. When Kennedy held court with reporters, he rarely talked in specifics, even though these conversations were for back
ground only and were not quotable;

eralities that
instead, he kept to gen did not yield breathless news beats but gave valuable guidance on the directions of New Frontier policy,
the President's own mood and feeling.
reasoning and thought processes, his
CHAPTER SEVEN:
journalistic ritual of holding for background briefings reporters was something Kennedy had learned to distrust early in his career. Theory had it
The vaunted Washington
that a
at
group of responsible journalists could gather, usually lunch or dinner, with an official and talk casually with him on a "background" basis, the material to be used as
guidance by the writers or stated on their without the use of the name of the source.
Rarely did
this process
own
authority
work properly. If the source was and the story big enough, miffed reporters important enough who were not invited got the news from those who were there and, not being bound by the rule that covered those
in attendance, wrote the story with names. "I figure/' said John Kennedy at one point, "that any time I go to one of those backgrounders, what I say is on the rec
As a result of this cautious approach, Kennedy was rarely burned by unfavorable publicity in his political career before the presidency. Never was he embarrassed on a major matter because of what he had said at unguarded moments. He was even more cautious as president. Another very important element in the White House
ord/
helped immensely in Kennedy's

stances
the total loyalty of the were the men
staff
who
guide the news: around him. Only in a few in had the minute-to-minute, the
efforts to
hour-to-hour contact with Kennedy
new
to him.
They were
old hands, most of them having been with him since 1952 or before. Those who did not agree with the Kennedy thoughts or did not like the Kennedy technique or found other objections, simply did not survive. The men who stayed with Kennedy were absolute in their devotion.
nod
of the President's head or a
word from him was enough
to seal their lips.
While the White House doors remained open to prowling newsmen, once the Kennedy policy had been proclaimed by the President, a reporter could tour the offices of the in timates Salinger, Sorensen, O'Donnell, O'Brien, Dungan, Goodwin, Feldman and get precisely the same viewpoint from each man. The front was solid. And it was a Kennedy front. Cabinet members and agency heads by the very nature of their positions were expected to be and in most cases
The Corps
QQ
same mind and loyalty immediately upon tak Trouble usually developed in the lower echelons ing of the huge departments where the employees were far re moved from Kennedy and the White House in both distance and authority. Kennedy's habit of holding small informal and nonschedwere
of the
office.
uled meetings with his top advisers gave him further control over high-policy news. Most of these sessions were unan nounced and unreported. (Eisenhower had scheduled and
had held regular Cabinet and National Security Council meet ings. The men attending and the subjects discussed were an nounced publicly, a procedure that clearly marked the news sources and objectives of the day for reporters.) Un der Kennedy, days could go by on which reporters had only vague ideas of who was seeing the President and on what matters. For the newsmen who had to meet hourly deadlines, the going was often tough. The advantage went to those who had a week or a month to work on a story, they were able
to ferret
But
if
out the happenings behind the scenes. the back-corridor doings of the President remained
were compensating factors. While ban on reporting the household ac tivities, it never quite worked. Caroline and her friends were spotted on the White House lawn at play. Jackie was seen water-skiing. The President was observed hitting a few
distressingly secret, there
there was a proclaimed
golf balls along the fence.

ties, all
The
made
news. Kennedy
to talk, to
moved around a
big parties, the small par great deal
Hyannis Port for a week end. And each day at the White House hundreds and thousands of hand-out words flooded from Salinger's office. It was the pol task-force icy to release anything that could be released the toasts dinners and at the state official lunches, reports, speeches in the Rose Garden to students. Whenever possible,
to a
luncheon
Salinger routed official visitors through the lobby, so that reporters could talk to them after they had seen the Presi dent. Much of this great, youthful churning, which had
stolen the scene
from the U.S. Congress, from the Penta from gon, governors of the states, even from the Kremlin for the time being, was open to be watched and written about. Often just the sights and sounds were more than a reporter
CHAPTER SEVEN:
could handle in a day.
During the campaign Kennedy had shouted to the crowd was tired of getting up every morning and reading in his newspaper what Khrushchev and Castro were doing in the world. What he wanted was to awake and see headlines about what the President of the United States was doing. One morning in the early weeks of Kennedy's White House tenure, Counsel Ted Sorensen came into the President's office with a wry smile on his face and holding a copy of a news
that he
paper with the front page dominated by Kennedy headlines. "People/' he told the President, "are tired of waking up
is doing. They are Castro want to know what Khrushchev and doing." The news equation between reporters and the President
every morning and reading what
Kennedy
can never be balanced. Reporters want to know more than they should in fact, they want to know everything, from
military secrets to the color of the presidential shorts. Pres idents always want to tell less than they should or could.
Part of the reporters' attitude
is
a filtered reflection of
the public's, the traditional view that the White House the occupants belong to it, to be peered at whenever
and and
wherever
wishes. Being public property was just part of the job, and any family which was not ready to meet the conditions should stay back home so the political mythology
it
read.
some 183 million people cannot drop in to check up, although there are June days in Washington when it seems that many have come to visit, the self-appointed guardian of
Since
the public snooping privilege is something that has to be known as the White House press corps.
If
grown
Kennedy, hiding several
offices
away from the area
prescribed for reporters (clearly marked with husky Secret Service agents), caused newsmen difficulties, the score was
evened by the White House press. Not only must a president come out for a public accounting to this group every now and then, but he must not move outside his eighteen acres un less he is followed in a plane, on foot, in a boat or in a car by a contingent of the press corps, some of the newsmen
shouting
facts into walkie-talkie radios, others
heaving film
the
and dispatches from one moving vehicle
to another,
The Corps
whole scene looking like something between a Ringling Brothers clown act and D-Day in World War II. Visitors to the nation's capital are often shocked beyond recovery when they attend one of the august ceremonies of
the national government, such as the welcoming of a for eign head of state, to find that the view of the spectators is
men
completely blocked by a sweating, shuffling crew of camera in parkas and that the presidential words are often
curses of technicians
drowned by the
and the
clatter of
dropped photographic equipment. Washingtonians take such goings-on in stride. Indeed, if a ceremony is not part sham bles, they look around to find out what went wrong.
The White House
press includes all those accredited to
cover the president. The number currently is near 1,200. But within that group there is a haughty elite twenty or
twenty-five
men who
call
themselves "the regulars/'
The
ap-
pelation has nothing to do with breakfast cereal or a term of enlistment; the regulars are those men who cover the presi dent "regularly," who are there day in and day out, who
travel
the
man
zines,
with him, who have no other assignment but to watch in the Oval Office. Since the big newspapers, maga wire services and networks are the only ones who can
afford reporters and photographers for such specialized duty, these are by economic evolution "the regulars/' The regulars are the ruling class, and they get the blooded of them claim special seats on the presi which at all times carries a small contingent of reporters from the main group in case something unexpected happens to the president. They get a working table up front in the banquet halls of America, and if the hosts are generous
privileges.
Some
dent's plane,
may even get fed for nothing. They are given the best location from which to watch and hear the president at all public functions. But most important, they get to
enough, they
dwell in that heady atmosphere that accompanies the White House. When they move around the country in the wake of
the president, they are ogled
clerks, respected
by
girls,
envied by local bank
in short, college journalism students they are somebodies by association. Their position allows them to mingle with the great and powerful of the land, who would not look at them if they
by
105
CHAPTER SEVEN:
were not newsmen. Their assignments take them to the places that presidents go on business and pleasure, which are most often the pleasantest or most exotic places in America and abroad. Expense accounts allow them to live
at a level that they could never afford on their salaries. "It sure as hell beats working," sighed one correspondent.
may be one of the most un communications business. At airport receptions the corps is pushed inside ropes and there con tained like prize Herefords at a county fair. The men must sit in dingy back rooms, halls, streets and locker rooms for
All things considered, this
dignified careers in the
hours, waiting to get a glimpse of their president. Strong legs are more of a requirement than big brains. The White House reporter soon finds that much of his job is running
across fields to catch the presidential party,
which some
how
has disembarked a mile away, or he must sprint a street in pursuit of a motorcade.
down
Most communities now provide a secondhand bus for pres idential motorcades. The White House press is put in the bus, and the bus is often placed so far back in the motorcade
that the reporters cannot see the president; or there is a fifty-fifty chance that the bus will be separated from the exec
utive limousine. History has yet to record a motorcade that went off as planned. When, subsequently, Kennedy flew to
were banned from the parade route; a special scheme was devised to allow the press corps to see Kennedy land at Orly Airport, then board a bus, take a short cut, and see him arrive at his residence. The bus driver got lost in the back streets of Paris, and the reporters arrived to find
Paris, buses
the street cleaners already sweeping
up
after the horse bri
gade. In Bogotd, Colombia, somebody forgot to measure the bus and just when Kennedy sped off in the distance it was
discovered that the bus would not go through an underpass at the airport. With such a record, logic would seem to dic
tate a change in operation for the White House press. But motorcades go on, precedent being too strong the idea of the motorcade apparently having come down from the crusades.
The White House
press,
with
all its
worldly wisdom and
ways, has a high quotient of good old American corn. It has organized itself into something called the White House Cor-
The Corps
respondents Association, with a seal just like the Kiwanis Club or the Moose and even a blue-and-white flag that is flown whenever the association takes to the water to follow
the president's yacht. Once a year it holds a which the president and his top men feel they
certainly as boring an evening as
devise.
huge banquet must attend

civic
any Buffalo
club can
are certainly not as good as they think themselves to be. But they are probably not as
The White House pressmen

as critics suggest.
bad
public at large has an overglamorized view of the of its swagger when it comes to town and be because corps, cause of show business, which bills the White House as the
hottest assignment in Washington. While physically closer to the big decisions,
The
White House
reporters seldom learn of them
first.
The White House
sources are few, are protected in the back corridors from un queries, and are so close to the president that they are much more guarded in their talk than other government
wanted
Most of the big news breaks come from the depart have had time to filter out to hired hands. Time and many again White House newsmen have found stories which originated with a presidential decision just a few feet away from them being written by the men on the Pentagon or State Department beats, because there the news first surfaced. But even when viewed critically, the White House press has one duty that is vital and that nobody else can perform. It must report hour by hour where the president is, what he is doing and occasionally what he is thinking. It is sur
servants.
ments
after policy decisions
veillance reporting. The president's words, the reaction of these are the things his audience, his health, his family that perhaps matter most to Americans from hour to hour.
A handful in the White House press does it superbly, some even try to get a glimpse of the backstage play. Others do little but sag in the black leather chairs in the White House
lobby and wait for the press secretary to hand them the day's news budget. Few men lick the job of being White House correspondent. Mostly, they go off to New Delhi to become foreign correspondents or are pushed into higher posts back
-.
~Q
CHAPTER SEVEN:
in the office
when
on the White House
their legs beat.
and stomachs begin
to
weaken
has triumphed, however UPI's Albert Merriman Smith, 49, who has covered the White House since 1941. His long tenure has earned him the honor of ending the pres
idential press conferences by shouting, "Thank you, Mr. President/' With that privilege worn like a battle ribbon,
One man
Smitty, with equal parts of showmanship, gall and brains, turned the beat into money and prestige. He wrote five
books on his experiences, hit the lecture circuit, became typed by such TV magistrates as Jack Paar as "the dean" of the White House press corps, and hour by hour, day by day, he has continued to turn out the fastest and best copy about
presidents that the nation has ever had. He skills, being able to repair a walkie-talkie
is
man
of
many
on a
dogtrot, to
find a telephone in the remotest wilderness, to navigate a boat in Narragansett Bay, to develop a wardrobe that boasts a
suit that looks like a suit in case of
tuxedo or a tuxedo that looks like a
an unexpected change in plans.
And
of course
he
is
there, always there.
the White House and invited newsmen to a little party to celebrate his victory, he took Merriman Smith over to see Jackie. "I want you to meet Merriman Smith/' said Kennedy to his wife. "We in herited him with the White House/'
When John Kennedy won
the
Reporters are an adaptable breed, and they can get used
any conditions. But what would remain most un settling to them was Kennedy's awareness of every word printed about him. Personal references bothered him much
to almost
more than did attacks on policy.

So often
for years
correspondents
who wrote about
the
all
all
president had felt they might the reaction their words provoked.
this.
be writing in a
vacuum for But Kennedy changed
Every word, every phrase was absorbed, tested for its friendliness, dissected and analyzed with scientific precision,
to detect the degree of approval or disapproval.
Even
at
mo
ments of crisis he would not ignore words about himself. When he was asked why he concerned himself with what was written, he asked simply, "Would you rather I didn't
The Corps
JQQ
or reporter, correspondent, editor, publisher
read
it?"
What
citizen could
answer in clear conscience, "Yes"? Kennedy
continued to read the footnotes, and he continued to care.
and cunning about public relations his profound knowledge of reporters and the American news business, there was trouble ahead for him in his rela
For
all
of Kennedy's
tions with the press.
As
a senator, as a political challenger for the presidency,
he had been amorphous. You could write about how he looked and what he said and how he voted on the various
bills,
but none of these
facts
were a
test
of the
man
as presi
dent.
He had
not raised
taxes,
broadened
social security or
sent
American men
to battle.
He
was a fascinating and
charming curiosity who won the interest, if not the sympathy* of nearly every journalist. But before January 20 his words
did not
mean
profit or loss,
hunger or plenty,
life
or death.
Now they did, and the basis of his relationship with the press Ken changed. How profound that change was to be neither
nedy nor the men around him realized at first. He was under unremitting scrutiny now. Every mistake would be pointed out over and over. Every action would be
questioned. Every
cion.
movement would be
treated with suspi
No
statement would be taken at face value. His rea
sons
would often be oversimplified or given too much He would weight, his motives would be questioned always.
have to suffer inaccuracies and grotesque distortions, some from carelessness, some from malice. But then, he had not
his will. exactly been forced to take the job against
any president in their natural state are friendly enemies. They both believe in each other, but they both, at some points along the way, disap
press
his job. prove of the way the other one does
The
and the president
CHAPTER EIGHT
SPACE CHALLENGE
E Washington Senators had just hung up another run on the Chicago White Sox in the season's opener, and most of the 26,734 fans and the new president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, were feeling good about the g-to-i score despite the cold, damp wind in Griffith Stadium. Kennedy had performed competently the annual ritual of pitching the first ball. He had shed his top coat, hauled back and with a good right arm lobbed the ball over the
TH
sixty photographers piled up in front of him. The players, out of the President's sight behind the photographic gal
lery, had all leaped and clutched for the ball, which had dribbled across a forest of fingers and then dropped into the
left
hand of Chicago's Jim Rivera.
In the presidential box, surrounded by friends, staff and assorted functionaries from both parties, Kennedy alter
nately joked and talked serious state business as he watched the play. He straightened up slightly and squinted as Associ ate Press Secretary Andrew Hatcher reluctantly stirred him
self at
the end of the second inning and
moved over
to
to lean
close to the presidential ear. The United Press International
was about
move
a wire
story reporting a strong Moscow rumor that Russia had sent a man into space and recovered him. Hatcher said he would
go check on it and report back. The President listened, nodded without saying a word, then turned back to baseball
and a Briggs hot dog.
Space Challenge
III
knew predictable. The President more than did Hatcher at that moment about the alleged Soviet space exploit. He knew that the Russians had prob ably not made their man-into-space shot yet; but he also knew that it was due within the next few days. For more than a month Kennedy had been told by his in telligence units that the Soviet manned space effort would come before April 15, just a few days before the United States had at first hoped to send a man to the fringes of the atmosphere and bring him back in a single looping shot in
The Kennedy calm was
far
the nose of an Atlas rocket.
As expected on this Monday, April 10, Hatcher's report was inconclusive. There was no confirmation. Washington went on to lose the ball game, and John Kennedy went back
to the
White House
in his black limousine, speeding
through
the red lights at sixty miles per hour, a privilege for presi dents that some exasperated Washington motorists rate
higher than the right to throw out the first baseball. It was the beginning of a week of disappointment, and Kennedy
may have felt it.

Late on Tuesday afternoon Press Secretary Pierre Salinger swung his stubby legs up on his desk, lighted another Uphis fellow press aides from the Defense and State Departments and their related agencies. By this time the official intelligence evaluation of the coming
mann
cigar
and welcomed
Russian space
effort placed it
within a few hours. Salinger
and
his colleagues began to draft a statement which the Presi dent could release once the Soviet man returned to earth, if
he did. There had been a slight argument within the White House on just what to say in such a statement. Running true
to the form they had displayed in the Eisenhower years, some of the President's scientific advisers wanted to play down any such Russian achievement. Kennedy would have none of it. His attitude was established at the start: he would pay tribute to a manned space flight for what it was. As Salinger's group labored over the words for the state ment, Jerome Wiesner, top science adviser to Kennedy, came
by the Oval Office. He quietly told the President that the best hunch was that the Soviet space flight would take place
that night.
112
CHAPTER EIGHT:
The
few minutes later Salinger brought in the statement. it silently, gave it tentative approval, then listened as Salinger outlined his course o action when
President studied
sees that in
last
and if the shot was confirmed. At 8 P.M. Major General Clifton, the man who
telligence reports go time that day.
to
Kennedy, checked in for the
be waked up?" Clifton asked. ''No," said Kennedy. "Give me the news in the morning." It proved to be a quiet evening for Kennedy and his staff. The President returned to the White House living quarters. Salinger uncharacteristically bowed out of a dinner date and
"Do you want
to
went to his Lake Barcroft home in Virginia for an early sup per and an evening of talk with a California friend. Dr. Wiesner turned from space to atomic energy and dined with Homi Bhabha, Secretary of India's Atomic Energy Commis sion. In the meantime the vast intelligence and communica tions network of the United States was on a hair trigger. Few people know for sure when the United States first de
tected the Soviet space vehicle as it lifted off the pad in Baykonur, near the Aral Sea, with its 15 3-pound human cargo aimed for successful orbit. But it was within seconds after
Yuri Gagarin was airbone that the first sensitive tentacles of the United States detection system picked up the telltale electronic waves from his rocket. At 1:35 A.M. on the follow ing morning the phone jangled rudely in Salinger's slumber
ing household. The calm-voiced Dr. Wiesner, who had been roused in his own apartment, relayed the expected report:
the Russians
in orbit
had launched one of their huge and believed to be the human space
missiles, it
flight.
was
Salinger
grunted his acknowledgment, quickly confirmed the publicity plan. Nothing was to be said by the United States until Rus
sia
announced the
shot. Salinger rolled
to get a few precious flood of phone calls.
moments
back into bed to try of rest before the inevitable
it
few minutes after 2 A.M. the next call came. This time was The New York Times,, which had picked up the ex cited Moscow radio announcement of the launch. Before confirming the story for this country, Salinger checked back
its
with Wiesner to make sure Moscow had indeed made
Space Challenge
119
own announcement.
Sleep was impossible thereafter. News networks and wire services all called for confirmation papers, of the flight. Dr. Wiesner kept the press secretary filled in on
the
official
reports as they trickled in.
The
President slept
undisturbed.
At 5:30 A.M. Wiesner called for inger that Moscow had announced
the final time to tell Sal
the return of Gagarin to
the Soviet Union. As far as this country was concerned, said Wiesner, the Soviets had successfully placed the first human
in space flight
and recovered him.
Shortly before 8 A.M. George Thomas, the President's valet, padded through the long central hall of the secondliving quarters. As he does almost every morning, George rapped on the President's bedroom door to make sure Kennedy was awake. He was up and stirring. George Thomas had a special duty this morning he was to
story
White House
let
call.
Salinger know when the President was ready for a In seconds the white phone a direct line to the
in Salinger's
phone White
House
home came
alive,
and the President
was waiting to hear the reports from the night before. Quickly Salinger told the story. Kennedy listened in si lence, still in his bedroom. "Do we have any details?" he in terrupted to ask. Salinger could furnish only a few: name,
orbit time.
Then
statement while the President listened. Kennedy gave
the press secretary reread the prepared it his
final approval. Putting down that phone, Salinger turned to another one and dialed each of the wire services.
Slowly he read, so that the men at the other end could type his words: "The achievement by the USSR of orbiting a man
and returning him

cal
safely to
ground
is
an outstanding techni
. .
accomplishment. We congratulate the Soviet scientists and
engineers
who made this feat possible.

later Salinger
office corridor.
."
Half an hour
President in his
specific?"
and General Clifton met the
Kennedy
asked. Clifton
telligence reports that filled in
"Do we have anything more handed him the yellow in more details. Kennedy studied
them without speaking. There was not much more that John Kennedy could do at that moment. He turned away and went into his office for a day's work on other subjects. Not until that afternoon at 4,
-i
CHAPTER EIGHT:
to the
when he went
his press conference did
Department Auditorium for Kennedy return to space matters. Then he grimly and wearily summed up the United States
State
New
position in the space struggle.
The question had not been a kind one. "Mr. President/' began the reporter, "a member of Congress said today he was tired of seeing the United States second to Russia in the space field. I suppose he speaks for a lot of others. Now, you have asked Congress for more money to speed up our space
program. What is the prospect that we will catch Russia and perhaps surpass Russia in this field?"
up with
"Well," said Kennedy, "the Soviet Union gained an im

portant advantage by securing these large boosters, which were able to put up greater weights, and that advantage is
going to be with them for some time. However tired any body may be, and no one is more tired than I am, it is a fact that it is going to take some time [to catch up]. ... As I said in my State of the Union message, the news will be worse
before
areas
it is
better.
We are,
hope, going to go in other
where we can be first, and which will bring perhaps more long-range benefits to mankind. But we are behind." For those who remembered the flaming days of John Ken
nedy's campaign for the presidency, the impatience with which he treated the question of our role in space, his answer was disturbing and the pervading calm with which the cur
Moscow news was accepted in the White House, while the rest of the world marveled, seemed hardly in the spirit of the New Frontier.
rent
It
had been
in Pocatello, Idaho, in the high-school audito
rium, during the fall of the campaign that Kennedy had cried out a harsh indictment of the Republicans. "They [foreign nations] have seen the Soviet Union first in space. They have
seen
it first
around the moon, and

ebbing.
I
first
around the sun.
They come
and ours
is
is rising to us to reverse that point." Standing on top of a building at New York University in Washington Square in October, 1960, Kennedy declared:
to the conclusion that the Soviet tide
think
it is
up
"These are entirely new times, and they require new solu tions. The key decision which this [Eisenhower's] adminis
tration
had
to
make
in the field of international policy
and
Space Challenge
1 1
prestige
and power and influence was

.
the significance of outer space. is first in outer space."

It
The
their recognition of Soviet Union now
was in Oklahoma
City's
municipal auditorium
five days
before the election that he shouted: "I will take
my
television
black and white.
I want to be ahead of them in rocket thrust." But now probably no one was more frustrated by the con
fining realities of our actual position in space exploration
new duties he had never come fully face immense problem of whether or not to chal lenge the Soviet Union to a manned space race. He knew
to face with the
than John Kennedy. In the rush of his
well the political realities of continually taking second place to the Russians. Indeed, to a limited extent he had been
elected to office on that issue. But the same scientific argu ments which made the Eisenhower administration seem com placent were now being given to Kennedy, who in turn was using them to answer the questions.
to the White House with the repu from running problems. But for a few short days, as Yuri Gagarin's name pre-empted the headlines, it seemed that Kennedy had indeed accepted the leisurely scientific at titude: we had fallen behind in the building of big rockets that could get us to the moon, but our smaller, more sophisti cated space instruments were yielding more and better sci entific information. Not for a long time, perhaps never, ran this argument, would we surpass the Russians in huge and glamorous space spectacles, but we would know more about what was up there. In the President's chair John Kennedy was finding it a hundred times more difficult to cope with this problem than on the stump in Oklahoma City. He could not decide at first if the gain in prestige could possibly be worth the billions of dollars that a challenge to the Soviets might cost. Though scientists work in a world of
Kennedy did not come
tation of
about
when it came to answering his simple question how and when we might overtake the Russians, their answers were vague and uncertain. Kennedy, who liked to make his own judgments after sufficient study, had not had
specifics,
time to learn about
all
the space projects
on
the drawing
jig
boards or
his
all
CHAPTER EIGHT:
the scientific probabilities. Kennedy prodded if the United States launched a crash program
men. What
to get a man on the moon first, he asked. Should not the United States leapfrog its own program, strike out to develop one of the monster rockets that could take men to Mars or to
Venus?
answers did not come as Kennedy wanted. The sci about the Soviet Union's ability to loop a man around the moon and back to earth, to land a human on the
The
entists talked
moon, to launch a space laboratory into orbit with several men on it all before we could perform such feats. The thesis went that the United States was doing just about everything it could do to catch up with the Russians. More money and more men on the program would not neces sarily speed it along. Certain technical breakthroughs were necessary before more progress was possible. Scientists were working now at the outer limits of their knowledge, and un til more knowledge was available something that could with American be not dollars, despite their simply purchased have this would to country stay behind Russia in quantity
the
manned space race.
There was no unanimity in the scientific ranks, however. of the men at work on the plans for deep probes into and landings on the moon and other planets felt the space essential in the space program to be the will and de missing sire to be first. What was needed was a presidential decision
Some
challenge the Russians. It was not impossible to overtake them if we really wanted to. Some of this thought
that
we should
drifted
for the
up through the bureaucratic maze most part he got the pat answers.
.
to
Kennedy, but
community had been debating whether a nuclear warhead could be put on a missile. Be cause the art of nuclear war had not been developed to a fine stage and the nuclear warheads were then so huge, some of
scientific
The problem, 1948, when the
explained the space men, went back to
the best scientific minds, including
Vannevar Bush, head of
the Carnegie Institution, declared it would be impossible in the foreseeable future to develop warhead-equipped
missiles
which could span continents. But only a few years after taking this
stand, the govern-
Space Challenge
j ^
merit's
weapons
its
laboratories, in
nuclear weaponry, found out

fraction of
tinental missiles
how
a spectacular breakthrough in to package a bomb in a
former space. Suddenly the idea of intercon became a reality and the United States did
begin
pace.
its
But
missile program, although at a somewhat leisurely its missiles now could be much smaller, need not
have the monstrous power that the original calculations on

the old warhead designs had indicated. The Russians atomic art lagged behind ours. Their war
7
heads were
sive thrust to
the outsized models that would require mas be lofted into space. Not hindered with any "breakthrough," they went ahead to design the big rockets
still
necessary for the big warheads. Years later, when the space race developed, the Russians, because of their lack of scientific sophistication, were ready
with the huge boosters needed. While the United States, with its far superior space science, had only smaller rockets,
splendid for pure space research but inadequate for
exploration.
manned
John Kennedy is always sympathetic to facts. He appreci ated the irony of a situation in which superior achievement in one year meant taking second place a few years later.Kennedy, however, has never taken kindly to the notion that some problems are insurmountable, that you must sit and accept the inevitable. His entire political success was based on challenging the established theories (such as the one that held that a Catholic could not be elected President of the United States). While he echoed the words of the sci entists in his press conferences, he nevertheless had a feeling that something should be done. Under the program that he had inherited there was little hope. This was a fact. The Russians would continue to be years ahead. One alternative was to launch|a program like World War II's Manhattan
which developed the atomic bomb. But Kennedy, when he thought in these terms, was stopped almost dead in his tracks by his budget books. The cost esti mates were simply staggering from $20 to $40 billion over ten years and even this kind of money could not guarantee success by 1968, an optimistic target date for landing a man on the moon. Nor was there a guarantee of winning the
Project,
jig
CHAPTER EIGHT:
deeper space probes later on. In the years before Kennedy became president, the ad ministration officials faced with these problems chose to do
nothing, thereby automatically making a negative decision. Of all the major problems facing Kennedy when he came
into
he probably knew and understood least about In the space. early weeks of the New Frontier the day-to-day of problems getting along on the surface of the globe dom
office,
inated his time.

stab at solving the problem. He asked Con $120 million more to speed up existing projects. He concluded that the giant Saturn rocket, a cluster of liquidfueled rocket units of the type already developed, should be
He made one
gress for
hurried by a year. These units lashed together would yield a thrust of a million and a half pounds, enough for the big space ventures. He asked that some of these new funds go to the development of the Nova, the liquid-fueled rocket with a single engine that would develop a million and a half
pounds of thrust. Kennedy moved, too, to make the National Space Council a more effective unit. It had been composed of the President, the Secretaries of Defense and State and the administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, plus the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. But the President had no time to devote to the council. Kennedy sub
stituted
Lyndon Johnson for himself, in hopes that President, with more time for this function, could
the Vice
give the
council a spur.
The pressure on Kennedy to finally come to hard grips with the problem of space mounted after Yuri's orbiting. Only hours after the Soviet success, congressmen and sena
tors cried for
more action.
"Wait," said one NASA scientist who had been impatient with the previous delays, "until the Russians send up three
men, then six, then a laboratory, start hooking them to gether and then send back a few pictures of New York for us
to see/'
"Kennedy could lose the 1964 election over this/' added another space administrator who had suffered through Amer
ican missile politics for years.
Space Challenge
HQ
#
crystallize some of the fuzzy Below the top levels, the engineers and physicists who design and see that the missiles work began to show new concern and to talk openly about the need for a political decision. While a few downgraded the scientific re sults that Yuri brought back to earth with him, most of the
scientific thinking.
Yuri Gagarin seemed to help
space
if
men
gave the Russians credit for having achieved far

just a
more than
propaganda
victory.
"You
you're behind," said one,
summing up
just aren't his feelings.
ahead
Project Mercury continued to fall behind thus further schedule, contributing to gloom. The target time for taking an astronaut into space and back again with out putting him into orbit had skidded from late 1959 into
America's
own
1960, then beyond 1960 into 1961 and from early 1961 to mid- 1961, then finally to late 1961. It seemed as if Project Mercury were far from an answer to the Soviets.
Kennedy pondered the

took:
crucial decision.
One
action he
he ordered an immediate review of our entire rocket
propulsion development program.
The
debate raged in the
newspapers for days. The space technicians began to say that a direct challenge to the Soviets would help focus the
energy of the country,
now expended
no
carelessly in a welter
of overlapping space projects with
clearly defined long-
range goals. "Roosevelt was considered crazy when he said we could make 50,000 planes a year, but we did it," said one White
House
took to
aide, getting the feeling of challenge.
"Think what it launch the Manhattan Project with no guarantee of

the feel of
it.
success."
Kennedy caught
men.
He summoned
his space
The White House in the evenings along about 7 o'clock sighs slightly and begins to decelerate. It never stops com pletely, for in the basement of the west wing are the cable
machines that are forever writing out their messages from Saigon or London or Moscow. But in the evening the sun slants its rays across the lawn, the oblique lighting bringing a fresh green to the spears of grass, the sprinklers are turned
2O
CHAPTER EIGHT:
on, bringing soothing dampness beneath the old elms, and inside, the last Boy Scout and the last Rotarian and the last
businessman's committee with their plaques and their gold membership cards and their invitations to the annual con
ventions are shooed out of the corridors.
The
of politicians has been slowed; only the select ones

this
endless parade come at
hour.
Secretaries begin to drift away, to their Georgetown apartments.

leave,
one at a time or in pairs, A few of the staff members

this is the
but not
all.
For some in the White House,

is stilled,
best hour.
The phone
the meetings are over.
A man
can relax a bit and just think, perhaps drift through the de serted corridors with the black-and-white-tile floor. John Kennedy slows a bit as the sun settles. His regime becomes
more informal. He often sees the people he wants to see, and sometimes he schedules those small, vital meetings with key officials. They can talk unhurriedly, and cocktail parties and dinner dates can wait. A perfect April day subsided, and Kennedy's space ad visers arrived. James Webb, NASA head, hurried down the hall, his square jaw set, a firm hand on his brief case, looking on the exterior more like a supersalesman than the govern ment administrator he is. He had once been Under Secretary of State to Dean Acheson. Beside him walked Hugh Dryden, Webb's deputy, the mild-mannered scientist who lurked
behind gold-rimmed
glasses.
Through
the side door
and up through the subterranean
warren sauntered Jerome Wiesner, his black hair as curly and unruly as ever, the inevitable pipe drooping from his mouth. David Elliot Bell, director of the Bureau of Budget, walked over too. His presence at virtually every vital meet ing was becoming habitual. He was the ex-Marine who
knew
meaning of that federal document that weighed 4 pounds, 4 ounces, had 1,136 pages and was the budget of the United States, the guide chart for the biggest going business in the world. And Ted Sorensen came too, a quiet force of skepticism. In his office a few yards beyond the domain of the President, Sorensen breathed on his glasses, polished them with his handkerchief in precise and deliberate mo tions. He turned, in a routine he had already established,
the
Space Challenge
2
rack and, lifting his arms high above He moved silently down the
picked his coat
off the
his shoulders, let it slide on.
corridor to the Cabinet Room, where the rest of the men had gathered around one end of the dark coffin-shaped table. The President entered from his secretary's office, the cham
ber that connects his oval quarters with the Cabinet Room. He came soundlessly, his quick steps muffled in the thick
green carpet. He did not waste more than a few seconds in the perfunc tory greetings. He pulled out one of the black leather chairs
Webb
end of the big table. Etched in the tiny on the back was "Secretary of the Interior, nameplate As the others stood, he dropped into the chair, Jan. 21, 1961." wiggled it back a few inches and then put his rubber-soled right foot on the edge of the table, pushed himself back where he tottered in delicate balance. To his right Dr. Wiesner poked at his dead pipe. Across to his left James
side
at the
on the
and
brass
leaned forward, ready to press his arguments on the Ex-Marine Bell sat like an officer candidate straight across the seven feet of mahogany, and Hugh Dryden leaned his forehead on his finger tips. Sorenson, with a
President.
sheaf of papers under his arm, pulled a chair from the wall and positioned himself off the end of the table, like a small tugboat standing by an aircraft carrier ready to dart in and
help out when called upon. Kennedy conducts a restless meeting when he is in quest of information he does not have. He pokes at his men with
when he
get
it
questions, rushes mentally off, sometimes before they finish, catches the gist of what they are saying before they
out.
I
He did that night.

it,
"As
understand
the
we
his
learned
how
to
make
problem goes back to 1948, when smaller warheads that could be car
ried with smaller boosters," the President said,
summing up
the question. "What can we do now?" he asked, rocking back and forth on the rear legs of the Secre tary of the Interior's chair. the experts told their stories. It was a dis couraging picture of years and billions of dollars that sepa rated the United States and Russia in
space.
own background on
One by one
Kennedy
frowned, ran his hands agonizingly through his hair.
"We
122
CHAPTER EIGHT:
may never catch up," he muttered.
"Now
let's
look at
this/' said
Kennedy
impatiently. "Is
we can catch them? What can we do? moon before them? Can we put a man on the moon before them? What about Nova and Rover? When will Saturn be ready? Can we leapfrog?" The one hope, explained Dryden, lay in this country's
there any place where Can we go around the
launching a crash program similar to the Manhattan Proj ect. But such an effort might cost $40 billion, and even so
there was only an even chance of beating the Soviets. James Webb spoke up. "We are doing everything
sibly can,
Mr. President.
foresight, we ever. ."

. .
we pos thanks to your leadership and are moving ahead now more rapidly than
And
But Kennedy did not want to hear praise at this moment. stopped Webb with a wave of his hand. "The cost/' he pondered. "That's what gets me." He turned to Budget Di rector Bell questioningly. The cost of space science went up
He
He tapped the bot toms of his upper front teeth with the fingernails of his right hand. It was not much of a discussion. It reflected precisely the
moment. The one impor had not been made by either Eisenhower or Kennedy. Would we or would we not get into a head-on manned space race with the Soviet Union?
state of the space
in geometric progression, explained Bell. Kennedy listened between questions.
program
at that
tant decision
the political decision
Kennedy heard from Wiesner that the re-evaluation of the booster program was under way even then. "When can you
have
it
finished?" asked
Kennedy.
"Now is not the time to make mistakes," cautioned Wies ner, who pulled on his pipe, looked at the ceiling and asked
for three
more months.
fast
Light was failing
now
in the
White House Rose Gar

Beyond the
den, which was just outside the Cabinet Room. seven-foot iron fence the street lights came on.
Kennedy turned back

for a second.
to the
decide
if it's
Then he spoke. worth it or not.
men around him. He thought "When we know more, I can
how
to catch up. Let's find
If somebody can just tell me somebody anybody. I don't care
Space Challenge
if it's
12%
if
the janitor over there,
he knows how."
Kennedy stopped again a moment and glanced from face to face. Then he said quietly, 'There's nothing more im
portant."
Suddenly he was out of

for
fice,
his chair
on
his feet.
"Thank you
coming
by."
He
strode to the door of Mrs. Lincoln's of
paused a short second for a final few words. Then he ducked back into his own office, beckoning Ted Sorensen to
follow him.
Alone with Sorensen, Kennedy thought about the curious dilemma further. The cost was frightening. Yet the threat was there, and Yuri Gagarin's name still lingered in the head
lines to
emphasize it. To Kennedy it was inconceivable that there was no way to accept the challenge and win this race if
it
was worth
to get
it
and the country wanted

said.
to
do
it.
"I'm deter
mined
an answer," he
Six weeks later the President stood before Congress for a second time in his four short months of holding office. In a
special message
is
on "urgent national needs" he
said,
"Now
it
time to take longer strides time for a great new American time for this nation to take a clearly leading role enterprise
in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth. Let it be clear that I am asking
.
the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment to a new course of action a course which will last for many
years
'62
and carry very heavy costs: 531 million dollars in fiscal an estimated seven to nine billion dollars additional
over the next five years. If
we
are to go only halfway, or re
duce our
sights in the face of difficulty, in

to
my judgment
it
would be better not to the moon."
go
at all.
...
believe
we should go
was enter
John Kennedy, and with him the United
States,
ing the space race. It was a cautious entry then, but in the next two years the amount spent for space would climb from
$531 million to $24 billion, and Kennedy's challenge to the Russians in space would be serious.
CHAPTER NINE
THE BAY OF
PIGS
FOUR
beach.
It
days after Yuri Gagarin sliced through the fringes of heaven, 1400 Cuban exiles sent by the United States were wallowing toward disaster in Cuba's Bay of Pigs.
to destroy the
John Kennedy, with the military power
world, did nothing as Fidel Castro, gleefully spouting com munistic shibboleths, rounded up the prisoners from the
was a fantastic bungle, and

first
was the
The White
confused.
it was a Kennedy bungle. It the New Frontier record. slash on black deep House was stunned, embarrassed, angered and
There were clumsy efforts to shift much of the blame to the military planners and to the Central Intelligence Agency. In the white heat of anger and humiliation there welled up what was defined as Kennedy resolve to avenge this de feat and to beat the obnoxious Castro. But in a few days this resolve had bubbled out to a vague and formless understand ing that somehow the Castro infection would have to be sur rounded and choked out, rather than cut out in military
surgery.
Kennedy learned
great lessons.
Months
later
he could look
back and see that the military-security operations of the United States government had developed pockets of dry rot beneath the surface. As long as there was no disturbance,
there was no hint of trouble in the apparatus. But when Kennedy came along and jarred the calm, he suddenly broke
through the
shell.
Kennedy learned about
the use of military
The Bay
of Pigs
^K
of Pigs, but the occasion was
power
of
it.
He
or rather, he learned what happens in the absence learned more about the communist enemy. All
these lessons
still
came with the Bay
defeat, bitter defeat for a
young president who had

that
never
Kennedy's
known defeat in his life. own philosophy stated
you did not win by
even Joe Kennedy time and time again losing. would say to his son that Cuba was the best lesson he could have had early in his administration, the President could
this view. Men had died needlessly. The of the United States, already dangerously eroded prestige around the globe, suffered more, and more important than
And though
never quite accept
any of these was the danger that Nikita Khrushchev might look at the wreckage on the beach and decide that the Presi dent of the United States could be pushed to virtually any limit. A war of miscalculation could easily arise from such conclusions, for Kennedy at that moment was not to be pushed
in any direction. The chain of miscalculations
and
errors that eventually
added up
to the abortive invasion
began upon Kennedy's

the
entrance into the national drama.
He had stood on
stump
during the campaign and cried out in affronted tones about the communist threat ninety miles from the shores of Florida and about Dwight Eisenhower's lack of action.
But though Kennedy had not known it, Ike had been do ing something. Hundreds of Cuban refugees were training in Florida and Texas and Guatemala. They wanted to go back to their homeland and take it from Castro. When, on November 18, 1960, Allen Dulles and Richard
Bissell first laid these facts before
Kennedy, the President
surprised. Under Kennedy the and almost on, immediately the guide lines for a military operation were laid down. One was that the United States would train and equip the invasion force, help it with plans, advise it in any way that the United States could, but that this country would not at any time intervene
elect
was more than a
little
preparations went
directly with its own military might. The Cuban force was to be a catalyst for a national uprising, a core of trained fighters around which discontented Cuban citizens could
rally.
126
Looking back a year
later,
CHAPTER NINE:
one Kennedy
man who
was
deeply involved in the action saw that the military and intel ligence experts were forced by the change in administrations
be salesmen. They wanted to push on with preparations for some kind of action, and so when the Kennedy amateurs, dreadfully concerned about international appearances, would say from time to time, "We can't do that," or "Take that out," the experts, with only mild sputtering, would go right ahead and say, "Okay, we can still do it." Later, the President would say, "All the mysteries about the Bay of Pigs have been solved now but one how could everybody involved have
to
and
as
thought such a plan would succeed. I don't know the answer, I don't know anybody else who does." If there were deep misgivings in the Pentagon or the CIA
Kennedy laid down his regulations for the operation, they did not penetrate to the White House. John Kennedy does not like to lose, and had he been aware of any serious doubts
by competent people,
it
is
reasonable to assume that he
would have
listened.
He was, like the others,
quite wary. Yet in a
way he was
also
eager for this adventure. In retrospect, some of his staff think they detected signs that for the first time he lost that cool
indifference that he
had
characteristically
brought
to every
Lyman Lemnitzer, Admiral Arleigh Burke, Air Force General Thomas White the Joint Chiefs of Staff all brave names from a brave era of war when the United States had no military peer, all with ribbons on their chests marking their years of success; these were the men who sat
from Kennedy and told about the military Cuba. They, and the immense war machine in the Pentagon and the CIA, selected the Bay of Pigs for the in
across the table
problem. Army General
plans for
vasion
the impatient rebels and trained them and gave them B-s6's that would have to fight against Castro jets. True, the plan was not like one for an open in
site.
They armed
where every available force could be used. But the intelligence experts, who hoped for a mass uprising to help throw the dictator out of the country, rated the chances of success better than that for the plan which in 1954 had wrested Guatemala from the oppressions of Jacobo Arbenz.
vasion,
The Bay
of Pigs
jg^
Kennedy listened to these experts. Why doubt them? There was only one man with doubts who made them known
was Arkansas Senator William Fulbright, and his objections were not based on the military feasibility of the operation but on the more nebu lous moral concept that it wasn't consistent with our nat
to
Kennedy before
the adventure.
He
ional ideals.
was a bold plan, the kind that appealed to the Kennedy This kind of action, the Kennedy brothers felt, fitted spirit. the New Frontier. It was full of chance, certainly, but it was
It
audacious, glamorous and new. It was irresistible. "Nobody in the White House wanted to be soft," ex
plained one White House aide

curred.
when
the tragedy
had oc
"That was the trouble. There were questions about the plan, but it was a fascinating plan. Everybody wanted to show they were just as daring and just as bold as anyone
They didn't look at it close enough." Though calm in the Washington spring as the invasion approached, Kennedy kept turning the proposition over and
else.
over to himself. There had been talk that the invasion was
going to be launched before it was really ready. But mili tary men are never really ready. And Castro was building
Even then some Cuban jet pilots being trained in Czechoslovakia were due back home in a few weeks and their ability, plus the Russian MIG fighters in crates on the Havana docks, might tip the balance of power.
his
forces.
own
Kennedy debated inwardly the morality of the act, the world response, the national response, the Latin American reaction. He sometimes even asked casual visitors how they would feel about some effort to topple Castro, searching se cretly for a pulse beat. But his whole inclination seemed to be somehow to soften the military impact of such a venture the one and only thing that could make it a success. The exiled Cubans, getting tougher and more competent in their training, were amounting to a skillful fighting force. Their numbers swelled to 1400, and this army became eager and restless for action. The point had passed when the group could be broken up conveniently or even prevented from acting on its own.
With
these facts before him,
Kennedy arrived
at his
own
IgS
CHAPTER NINE:
philosophy for the invasion. It was to be, not a new revolu tion, but a "revolution redeemed/' In all his plans Kennedy had insisted that most of the old Batista men be kept at arm's length. He wanted no taint from the pre-Castro
days.
The
revolution against such oppressive dictatorship something that the new administration endorsed. In
was
Ken
nedy's mind, the mission now was to put the original revolu tion back on the track on which Fidel Castro had started it.
Kennedy looked
to the thousands of
young Cubans,
all
Castro
in the beginning, who, as they saw Castro pervert his revolution in the name of communism, left him and came to
this country.
men
The blow was
to
be struck in the name of free
had originally promised but had since re dom, nounced. These philosophical thoughts seemed to prevail over those of tanks and guns. Kennedy seemed to think that he could notlose.
as Castro
American businessmen who had lost prop might be the first in line at the White House in case the upheaval were successful. Such an act would be
fretted that
He
erty to Castro
damaging to this country's national stature, providing the communists with another chance to call us imperialists. Ken nedy wanted to be sure that, in case of Castro's rout, some provision was made for a government which would assure some of the reforms which Castro had promised. Kennedy's original stipulation that the Cubans at no time would get direct help from American armed forces appar ently was not fully understood by the Cubans. In the week before the invasion Kennedy sent a CIA emissary to Guate mala to impress the condition on the rebel leaders once more. The reservation had particular bearing on air power.
Control of the air was part of the invasion plan, but it was control of the air with old B-s6's from the United States, to
be flown by Cuban pilots. No United States jets were to be committed, even though some would be just over the horizon on the aircraft carrier "Essex," part of a task force that
Navy would escort the landing party to Cuba. Further restrictions were made. Kennedy ruled that the B-26's would not have the right to rove at will in the hours
before the landing, striking at Castro's sitting planes and dropping supplies to insurgent groups. Instead, he would
The Bay
of Pigs
I2 g
allow only two strikes: one, two days before the landing; the other, on the morning of the landing. He was bent on
making the operation "unspectacular." The White House and the State Department rather ridicu lously continued to brood about the possibility of the United States' being blamed for the action, which, indeed, she was preparing, as newspapers had pointed out, for weeks. There was even curtailment of some of the propaganda devices, such as leaflets and radio broadcasts, to arouse the Cuban populace. The United States hand was not to be obvious. On April 4 the last major meeting on the plan was held. John Kennedy polled everyone in the room, and from each came a go-ahead. There were varying degrees of enthusiasm among the men and there were Fulbright's conscience pangs, but there were no real doubters about the ultimate success of the venture. Even Fulbright, at the close of this meeting, came to Kennedy and said that there was more to the opera tion than he had thought. The fateful week end came. John Kennedy went to wait at Glen Ora; the White House communications staff was
ready to keep
The
where
him informed of progress in seconds. rehabilitated B-s6's struck out for Castro's airfields,
his
planes were deployed as the invasion barges loaded. Castro, who knew what was happening from intelli
and
gence reports from the rebel army, screamed to the world, for the first time it began to listen.
Our story was that Castro's own pilots had defected with his planes and had bombed the fields as they fled. In the
United Nations, Cuban Foreign Minister Raul Roa charged that the attack was the start of an American invasion. Our UN Ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, uninformed of the ex tent of American involvement, insisted that we had nothing to do with the action. First reports of the air strike claimed remarkable success, but in fact it had not done well. Castro's air force was esti mated at about fifty-five planes of all types, about half of which were of some military threat. There were B-26's and
British Sea Furies, obsolete propeller planes
T-33
jet trainers,
and six or seven which had been armed. It was estimated

were destroyed
that only about five or six of all the planes
..
g~
all
CHAPTER NINE:
drops of arms to the insurgents
or damaged. Nearly missed their targets.
was not nearly so serious as the de velopments in the United Nations and New York. The im age-conscious planners began to get panicky as the protests poured in. The headlines in the first hours after the air strike
But
this state of affairs
his
exceeded anything that had been anticipated. Kennedy and men decided that the second air strike should be can
celed. Bissell
and CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell pro tested to Dean Rusk at the State Department, but the Secre tary was adamant; diplomacy came first. At one point Rusk
asked if they wished to protest directly to the President, who was then on the phone with Rusk, but neither did. Military men of the lower echelons were deeply disturbed by this development, and Bissell and Cabell became more
alarmed
as they
thought matters through.

off the
At
craft
first
light
assembled
on Monday morning, April 17, the landing Bay of Pigs and headed for the shore.
At
A.M. the President's military aide, Chester V. Clifton, was awakened by a phone call and given the report that the troops were ashore. He ordered the caller to phone Glen Ora
5: 15
and relay the news to the President. John Kennedy was awakened and told the scanty facts. In the Bay of Pigs four of Castro's jets did their work well. Armed with rockets, they sank two ships with ammunition and communications equipment while the B-s6's of the in vading force tried unsuccessfully to chase them off. General Cabell called Kennedy, now in his White House office, to give him the bad news. Kennedy ordered the sec ond air strike reinstated. But he turned down new requests for United States air cover. He still would not alter his basic rule that American military power would not be directly committed. Even then the feeling of failure had crept into the
Oval
Office.
Suddenly John Kennedy sensed that he needed near him

the most trustworthy and reliable person he knew. He put in a call for his brother Bob, who was then in Williamsburg,
Virginia, scheduled to make a speech at noon to the United Press International managing editors. The invasion was not
going well, he told Bob.
"Why
don't you
come on back and
The Bay
let's
of Pigs
As soon as the luncheon talk was over, Bob hurried to the White House. The country and the world were largely ignorant of the force was es developments. The fact of the skimpy invasion tablished, but no correspondents were on the spot and the
discuss it?"
news from the other Cubans in Miami was unreliable. had fought well Despite the tragic start, the Cuban rebels and had achieved some of their objectives. But by Tuesday tanks they were short of food and ammunition, and Castro's and heavily armed columns were on them and his jets still
roamed
nedy
the sky at will, the second air strike ordered having been thwarted by clouds.
by Ken
for all congressional reception, a gay white-tie affair was scheduled congressmen and senators and their wives, for Tuesday night in Washington. From 10 P.M. until mid
The
night the champagne would flow and there would be good would fellowship in the White House. Most of the guests
know nothing of what had happened in

As the time approached
for
the
Bay of
Pigs.
Kennedy
to dress,
he was
to
did tally unconscious of the affair. He lingered in his office, not heed the reminders that the reception was due to start. Only minutes before 10 did his aides literally guide him to
the door and insist that he dress.
handsome and
a generality.
For two hours there was the old Kennedy, smiling and as self-confident as ever. He answered ques tions about the Cuban invasion with a shake of the head and
chatted about the bills before Congress and about his pleasure that at last there was action on some of
He
them.
He mingled in the crowded public rooms; then, at 11:45, he and Jackie went up to their quarters, the signal that the reception was over. As the congressional couples began to drift away into the cool spring air, Kennedy hurried back to his office, where the lights blazed brightly. The principal figures had been summoned; the invasion now hung on the edge of total disaster. Bissell appealed for American air power, in a final desperate effort to save the expedition. But Kennedy and his civilian advisers had con cluded that the invasion was finished already. They felt that even American air power, the use of which they still opposed,
too
could only prolong the
life
CHAPTER NINE:
of the invasion force for a few
hours. Perhaps the men could be helped to escape, but nothing else was of any use.
more
Furthermore, another major miscalculation in this hapless adventure was becoming starkly clear. The world was not
going to pass
this off simply as an adventure by a handful of Cubans who had somehow wangled old fighting equipment. Nor were the men, now beaten on the beach, going to be
able to
make
their
way
fifty
miles into the mountains, thus
disappearing from sight to join the growing forces gathering to fight Castro in his own backlands.
This was the alternative plan if the beach operation failed, and Kennedy and his men found it, like the rest of the
could
operation, entirely plausible. The idea that the 1,400 men slip into the mountains was perhaps not so improbable,
but the suggestion that the American press would drop the matter in a few days if nothing came of it was such a faulty
calculation that almost any person the least familiar with the ways of news gathering could have sounded a warning. That
Kennedy, a
man
journalism, had even considered such a proposition
intimately acquainted with journalists and is one of
the great imponderables of this event. All the major men of the government surrounded
Ken
nedy
in these hours at one time or another.
Lyndon Johnson
was in constant attendance. There were Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. CIA
Director Allen Dulles with his pipe and brief case and even
his unflagging smile
was on hand. There were Admiral Burke and General Lemnitzer, Bissell and Cabell, and most of the White House staff. The men gathered off and on in all the rooms the Cabinet Room, the Fish Room, the Presi
dent's office.
and
Bob Kennedy lurked in the corners, downcast when now and then the disaster on the beach would overwhelm him and he would mutter, "We've got to do something, we've got to do something. We've got
silent except
to help those
men."
Coffee was rushed from the mansion to the working men as they pondered. Out of the deliberations came a plan, but not a plan to try for victory. Kennedy agreed that the "Essex"
could furnish air cover for one hour the following morning
The Bay
of Pigs
no
from 6:30 to 7:30 while supply ships went in to unload and the remaining B-26's got in another attack. It was near
2 A.M.
when
these orders
went out.
Now Kennedy
Council, angry
at a crucial
men
had to consider the Cuban Revolutionary held prisoners at an abandoned airfield

fiery leaders might cause trouble armed guards had been placed around
near Miami. Fearing that the

time,
them while they waited for the invasion force to take a part of Cuba, on which they could establish a provisional govern ment. At the White House a frantic call went out for Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The Harvard historian and Pulitzer Prizewinning author was a part of a drama as spectacular as those he had written about. For weeks Schlesinger had been one of the President's cloak-and-dagger men on the Cuban in vasion. Now he and Adolf Berle, Latin American expert who also had worked closely on the plans, were routed out of their beds. Kennedy wanted them to fly to Florida and meet with the council. Schlesinger was rumpled and unshaven and dead tired. Berle wrapped himself in an overcoat and complained of the cold. Air Force Aide Godfrey McHugh at first had trouble finding a plane, but with the full force of the White House behind his calls, he soon succeeded. Schle singer and Berle took off into that miserable night, fitfully sleeping on the plane which finally got them to their destina
tion at 7:30 A.M.
Schlesinger
and Berle had never seen angrier men. One

let
threatened to walk out and
the guards shoot
him
unless
something was done. "We sit here and read the communiques issued in our names, and we are not permitted to leave," they told the two men from Washington. They had heard
the whole tragic story of the failure of the invasion; some of them had sons in the expedition. It was an intolerable situa tion, and Schlesinger phoned the President and told him
so.
He
advised
Kennedy
that
he should see the council. "If

along/'
as
that's
what you
as
think, bring
them
In the meantime Ken O'Donnell,

a
Kennedy said. composed and faithful
man
dent's
Kennedy had around him, sat outside the Presi door and watched the night slip by. Pierre Salinger
felt
joined him.
The two men
more anguish
for
Kennedy, the
man
CHAPTER NINE:
they had followed through his greatest political battles, than they felt anything else. Finally O'Donnell leaned over to
Salinger
and
said,
"That's the
first
time Jack Kennedy ever
lost anything."
then, near 4 A.M. when there was quiet over all of Washington, there was nothing more that these men in the
And
White House could do or talk about. One by one they drifted off into the night. At last only the President was left in his
have a last word with O'Donnell and Salinger. Then, alone, he went out the French doors of his own office into the Rose Garden,
office.
He
stepped to the doorway a
moment
to
hands in his pockets.
He
loitered a bit
on
his
way
to the
mansion. This was John Kennedy's lowest
moment
of his
months of crisis. He walked alone through the damp

black April night.
their shadows
grass
on that blue-
The
among
pale globes of the street lamps cast the elms, and the gentlest morning
stir
breeze was beginning to
which Andy House. There was more than physical loneliness. There was now, without question, about John Kennedy the undefinable and inevitable presidential solitude that comes with the White
in the leaves of the old magnolias Jackson had planted at the rear of the White
House just as the ghost of Abe Lincoln his bedroom on dark nights.
still
walks there in
But the chemistry of the Kennedy soul cannot be explained

in a simple equation. When sadness or self-pity or indiffer ence or anger should be precipitated by bad news and bad events, they rarely can be found. Instead, there develops determination. It is not blind and unreasoning, not a flash of
passion. It is determination that every faculty must be sharp ened and applied with double diligence, that only in this
way can success be gained. Kennedy's mind, when
it
is
so set, looks
back only for
clues to the future. In the hours preceding this short and lonely walk, the transformation had started. The President
knew
of the United States, even before his 183 million citizens the grim facts of this disaster, had begun to think
about what he had to do to make sure nothing similar would
happen in the future. Early on Wednesday the
last
gasp came
and even
it
was
The Bay
of Pigs
oK
American air cover Four Americans, who had trained the Cuban pilots and had volunteered to fly on this mission in the place of some of the exhausted rebel airmen, never returned from that strike. In bitterness, Cuban Bri gade 2506 laid down its arms and marched toward Castro's
fouled up.
B-s6's arrived before the
Castro's jets.
The
and were smashed by
prisons.
ninetieth day in of fice, a seven-hour meeting had begun. The same team that had spent the night there drifted back into the executive
offices.
By noon on Wednesday, Kennedy's
From
officials
offices.
assembled in knots and clusters in
12:30 to 7:30 there was no letup. Again the high all the various
At times Kennedy sat with his military men as they held on what might be done. There was talk of sending in the Marines immediately to conquer the coun try, of calling on the Organization of American States to go with us. But that proposal was unappealing to Kennedy al most as soon as it was advanced. Castro's men might, under
aimless discussions
such circumstances, decide to fight to the death. In such a

case the United States would be forced to engage in several weeks of bloody battle the giant stepping on the ant. Cas tro's cause and the cause of communism might in the end be
immeasurably enhanced.
They discussed a blockade

that this, also,
of the country, but they thought
would be an
talk of
act of
war almost
as surely as
send
ing in troops.
There was
mounting another rebel
force, this
one
better armed, better trained; but in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, such an attack would have the same effect on the
world
as if
we invaded with United
States troops.
Time and again Kennedy stood
quietly off from the others,
talking with his brother. It was in these talks that the Ken nedys began to see that something was wrong in the White House organization. The debacle could not have happened had the right man been present at the right time to ask the
right questions. The President had accepted the advice of the men who should have known. Kennedy was no military
and intelligence expert so he couldn't challenge all the con clusions. needed somebody near him to look over the
He
io
CHAPTER NINE:
Pentagon's advice with a totally independent eye. The Ken nedy brothers in these snatches of conversation laid the
groundwork
for a
new and hard
look at the White House or
ganization and, indeed, the entire national security structure. John Kennedy, in shirt sleeves, moved from room to room
listening to
new
facts
on the
two
disaster, asking for
new
ideas.
He smoked
his usual
did not rebuke his
men
no more. cigars after lunch at that moment nor did he rush.
He He
tried to evaluate every fragment of information. His skepti cism of what was told him was now monumental. Probably only his brother had his complete trust in these hours. What emerged from the afternoon's discussions were the
careless
stingy nature of the military planning and the inaccuracy of the intelligence. The retirement of Allen Dulles, long rumored, was now certain. The Kennedy boys
and
liked Dulles and did not fix the
blame on him but the CIA had faulted and Dulles ran the CIA. In the course of the discussions some of the military men would suddenly slump and blame themselves, asking why they had not thought of certain details before. Kennedy lis
tened to
callers
this self-criticism silently.
He
kept his regular ap
pointments, flinging
the Fish
on
his coat at the last second.
were gone, he rushed back to the Room. When one aide came around with a sad Kennedy chided him, "There are no long faces here."
When the Cabinet Room or

face,
Wednesday, April 18, was an American spring day. For Washington it meant hordes of tourists pressed against the iron fence of the White House, waiting with their baby Brownies for the slightest glimpse of the first family. And for thousands of high-school students it was time for the annual spring trip, when they could buy funny hats, walk down Pennsylvania Avenue with their arms around their girl friends, parents being a thousand miles away. Near 5 P.M. the federal office buildings emptied of their legions of work ers, and for half an hour there was sidewalk anarchy, the of fice armies desperately trying to hail cabs and buses and the
visitors,
equally intent, trying to park their overloaded cars, photograph the monuments and find their directions on the
tourist guides.
The Bay
of Pigs
Though there was national crisis on that evening, it was contained within the walls of the White House. The waning sun filtered through the burgeoning leaves and the heavily
fertilized grass
was thick and a brilliant green. the rim of the eighteen most important acres in the fountry all was gaiety and curiosity. The circle of lawn from
On
the fence to the building was a tranquil moat of birds and plants. Only near the white walls was the frenzy sensed. At
the side entrance to the west wing, photographers
and
re
porters milled, waiting for their prey, the important people whom they knew should and would go in and come out. Bob
Kennedy's gleaming Cadillac, which could absorb his entire family of seven children and a dog or two without choking,
was parked
biles
at the curb, as were a squadron of black automo belonging to the mysterious men inside. Along the cir cular drive in back of the White House another flotilla of
official cars rested.
was at the other side that another car approached. Edging through the morass of tourists and students and workers, few of them giving it a second glance, it passed hur riedly through the gate and braked to a stop under the col umned portico. Six men scrambled out. Miro Cardona, the
it
But
revolutionary leader, and five of his council had just flown from Miami in the Air Force plane sent for them.
Cuban
They strode silently through the corridors of the White House, arriving at the west side and Kennedy's office. De'feat, disillusion and bitterness was heavy among these men. They poured their stories out to the presidential advisers first, then they met with John Kennedy alone for ten min
utes.
The
President told them that the failure of the invasion
was
not theirs; they had indeed done everything He could. extended his sympathy to the men who had they sons in the expedition. This country was considering what action was now open to it, said Kennedy. He would keep in
his fault,
hurried off to
touch with the men. Now, free to go as they pleased, they New York.
Kennedy had decided that a speech scheduled for the next day before the American Society of Newspaper Editors should
his
be turned into a talk about Cuba. It was one way of stating mind without interruptions such as occur in a press con-
CHAPTER NINE:
Sorensen was called, and Kennedy outlined his
138
ference.
thoughts. Then there were
doings. This time Kennedy donned a tuxedo and hurried off to the Greek embassy for a Prime Minister Carreception given for the President by in the offices of the back was he But amanlis. by midnight
more formal
White House, and with him were Dean Rusk, McGeorge who since dinner had Bundy, Chip Bohlen and Sorensen, been at work on the draft of the speech for the editors and
the world. It was, Sorensen noted later, the most splendidly dressed policy meeting yet held in the new administration. Everybody but he was in formal wear. of Kennedy roamed Sorensen's large bare office, talking of out words, And then again they ran what he wanted to
say.
and the meeting broke up. Last to leave Sorensen's office was John Kennedy, and just before he walked from the room he noted a magazine lying on his speechwriter's desk. He scooped it up and flipped the pages as he walked out.
The
time was near
A.M.
hour Sorensen worked with the words that on the following day would be Kennedy's. He needed help, and would not yet be asleep, he tele figuring that the President with Kennedy. But the President phoned the mansion to talk was not there, he was told. Indeed, it was thought that he was with Sorensen, the last place where he had been traced. down the phone receiver and pushed back Sorensen
For half an
put from his desk to go down the corridor to see if the President was still at work in his office. When he entered the hall, he in a chair, reading. It was nearly fell over a figure slumped
Kennedy.
Sorensen, as he
had done
so often in the past, labored
the first draft was com through the night. By midmorning read it and, as is customary, wanted some pleted. Kennedy He and Sorensen pushed through the French doors
changes.
and out into the Rose Garden to walk in the sunshine and House talk. As they walked, Caroline burst from the White lawn. the south set on in a dead run, headed for her swing her at Four little playmates from her nursery school tagged heels. The President's eyes brightened as he saw relief from all the tension. He called to his daughter, and she heard.
The Bay
oj Pigs
jog
in her child's run, she swerved to where her father stood with Sorensen. He held out his arms and
Without stopping
she
jumped into them, and without loss of motion Kennedy swung her around in a sweeping and joyful arch. Back on the ground, she ran off again toward the swings, and the President of the United States went back to work.
The hour came. The TV channels were ready to carry his words across the land. He nodded to Turner Catledge, Presi dent of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. "The
president of a great democracy such as ours, and the editors of great newspapers such as yours," he began, "owe a com mon obligation to the people; an obligation to present the
facts, to
present
is
them with candor, and
to present
them
in
cided in the
with that obligation in mind that I have de twenty-four hours to discuss briefly at this time the recent events in Cuba.
perspective. It
last
"On
better.
that
unhappy
island, as in so
many other arenas

grown worse
of the
contest for freedom, the news has

.
.
instead of
."
Incensed by Khrushchev's blathering, Kennedy for the sec ond time in the week answered him: "Any unilateral Ameri
can intervention, in the absence of an external attack upon ourselves or an ally, would have been contrary to our tradi tions and to our international obligations. But let the record
show that our restraint
is
not inexhaustible. Should
it
ever ap
pear that the inter-American doctrine of noninterference merely conceals or excuses a policy of nonaction if the na
tions of this
hemisphere should
fail to
meet
their
ments against outside communist penetration clearly understood that this government will not hesitate in meeting its primary obligations which are to the security of our nation.
of Cuba, of Laos, of the rising din of com munist voices in Asia and Latin America these messages are
commit then I want it
"The message
the same.
all
The
societies are
tory.
about
to
complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft be swept away with the debris of his
Only the
strong, only the industrious, only the deter
mined, only the courageous, only the visionary who deter mined the real nature of our struggle can possibly survive. Too long we have fixed our eyes on traditional military
.
.
.
CHAPTER NINE:
needs,
on armies prepared
flight.
to
cross
poised for
Now it
should be clear that this
enough that our security may be lost missile or the try by country, without the firing of a single
." crossing of a single border. And at the end of this brief but eloquent declaration,
.
on missiles no longer piece by piece, coun

borders,
is
Kennedy added: "We intend
to profit
from
this lesson.
We
intend to intensify our efforts for a struggle in many ways more difficult than war, where disappointment will
often accompany us.
"For
am
convinced that
we
in this country
and
in the
free world possess the necessary resource, and the skill, and the added strength that comes from a belief in the freedom
of man.
And I am equally convinced that history will record the fact that this bitter struggle reached its climax in the late 1950*5 and the early ig6o's. Let me then make clear as
the President of the United States that I
am
determined
upon our system's survival and success, regardless of the cost and regardless of the peril." These were typical Kennedy words. Would there be ac tion? This was the question: would there be the determina
tion that
would win
the next one?
Kennedy braced for the criticism that rolled in from every corner of the land. "I expected to get my head kicked off
over Cuba/' he recalled later. It became a time of rare humility in the White House. "It
marks a new phase," said one White House

is
aide.
"Kennedy
is
man
of."
of reasonableness
up
to a point
until he
made
sap sonableness would not
Now
it
was more evident than ever before that rea
work
against
communism. Kennedy's
you
dream
of quiet diplomacy was fading a bit. His idea that
could "hold firm" and "prod around the edges" seemed to have suffered a setback.
"When
aide
time.
it
happened, the President was hit hard," said one
months afterward. "He showed
He
looked sad.
The
his fatigue for the first exhilaration of the job was gone.
first forty-
He
was no longer the young conquering hero, the

cigar with his friends
three-year-old president, the first Catholic president, the young
man smoking his
and
telling
them how
The Bay
of Pigs
much fun
it
was. All that was gone. Suddenly
it
became one
hell of a job." And to another

as the
who watched
the President most intimately
Cuban
disaster unraveled, the distressing thing
Kennedy really bad answers/' said the aide learned you didn't win them all."
lot of
that
was had asked the right questions. "He got a

bitterly.
"The
President
blame or almost. In his his own public declarations, even in private, he admitted of giant miscalculations. Yet on the Thursday and Friday
John Kennedy accepted the
full
the aftermath of the defeat, the
White House did
its
own
hatchet work. Reporters were called into background ses sions and informed that the Joint Chiefs of Staff had selected
the landing beaches and that the CIA had promised the na tive uprising that never materialized. Some attempts were made to fasten responsibility on the Eisenhower administra
tion.
Some
statements were considered so far out of line that
Salinger personally called reporters to get them rescinded. interview Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall in a
TV
took
up
the cry, almost fully blaming Ike, a charge
Kennedy
hastily corrected. It was not the for the White House staff, which
the toughest political of deception. Sympathy for John
most admirable moment had gone through one of campaigns in history with a minimum
Kennedy was genuine without falsify ing the record. "I've never had more confidence in the Presi dent," said Walt Rostow, who had watched the President
take his beating, then spring back. Coolness had set in at the White
"We
its
don't want to act like
House by Thursday. some European principality over
colony," admitted one aide,
who
predicted that time
would reveal the consequences from the Cuban bungle not to be as dire as most people thought them at the moment. But any optimism was limited. Bob Kennedy predicted that this was the start of a string of bad news that would be trig gered in the next months by the communists. And Chip Bohlen in a talk with the President advanced the theory that this might be the year chosen by Khrushchev for the showdown.
CHAPTER NINE:
"Can our
society survive, fighting
communism
the
way we
do?" Bob Kennedy asked a visitor over lunch. Kennedy had immediate doubts about the military and security plans for Laos, so shaken was his faith in his generals.
The Kennedy brothers noted that the authority for the world's trouble spots was spread over a dozen men in a
dozen departments, and they wondered need one man with key authority in each
they might not area, a sort of coldif
war czar for each
Kennedy looked
sore point. at his own staff
and tended somewhat
to
slight the professors, who, like himself, had accepted the words of the professionals without question. He asked Ted
Sorensen, ever the doubter, to involve himself
more
in for
eign policy.
Kennedy showed a streak of irritation at the public which could remain so apathetic in the total battle against com munism. It was a deep Kennedy belief that only the voters could really arouse the government. When their concern was
genuine, there was no trouble getting what was needed from the Congress, from the Pentagon, from the State De
partment and from the White House.
Kennedy asked
from
for
his staff, for less
more common sense and hard work theory and more fact.
He
decided that there should be a thorough investigation
and all his staff members might not repeat the same mistakes. He asked retired General Max well Taylor, just then settling in New York as president of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, to head the in vestigation which was to start immediately. He would be helped by Bob Kennedy, Admiral Arleigh Burke and Allen
of the disaster, so that he Dulles.
Even then the Kennedy brothers were forming an opinion would in the months ahead become their public stand on the Bay of Pigs episode. They held that the plan was doomed before it began from inadequacy, that the whole attempt to bring Castro down was based on a miscalcu lation. The investigation of Taylor's committee would strengthen that belief until Bob Kennedy would say, "Vic
that
tory was never close." In his view, ten times were needed and that much more material, at
as
many men
least.
He
con-
The Bay
of Pigs
eluded that at no time would the addition of United States fail airpower have done anything but prolong the inevitable
ure of an operation ill-planned, ill-timed, ill-executed. The Kennedys noted gaping information holes once the catastro
phe was on them. They had had no idea, for instance, of the lethal qualities of a heavily armed T-gg jet trainer. The fact that T-33's could cause so much havoc had not been dis cussed, at least on a level that alerted them. Thus no special concern was registered when even the routine measures to destroy the T-33's were curtailed. Critics, both then and later, would not accept this view. They maintained that the expedition had come closer to suc ceeding than the Kennedys would acknowledge, and had even a minimum of American airpower been applied at the
right time, the invaders might well have held out long enough for a provisional government on Cuban soil to be es
tablished and recognized. This event, they argued, would have changed the entire complexion of the operation, for then America and her allies could have applied unlimited
power.
As Kennedy fought for air in the flotsam that came in the wake of the disaster, he did not forget politics. He asked to
see
Dwight Eisenhower at Camp David.

in the Catoctin
trees had not yet leafed of the Saturday morning warmed the bare branches. In front of Aspen Cottage, which hangs on
Up
Mountains the
out,
and the hazy sun
the lip of the mountains and looks into the distance, forty
newsmen and photographers waited. Eisenhower and Ken nedy came by helicopter and went immediately to lunch.
talked, Kennedy giving a detailed explana what had happened in the Cuban adventure, then asking Eisenhower's advice on what subsequent action to
For an hour they

tion of
take.
The gesture to Ike, a way of building some unity, so that the nation would not get embroiled in a bitter partisan
wrangle, was a skillful maneuver. After lunch Kennedy and Ike strolled
side alone for fifteen minutes.
tage,
down
the mountain
Then, Aspen Cot Kennedy talked to the newsmen briefly. "I invited the President to come and have lunch so I could bring him up to
in front of
date on recent events and also to get the benefit of his thoughts and experience/' said Kennedy, scuffing the ground
with his
toe.
Ike, tanned and smiling, parried the questions. "It's very nice to be in a position not to be expected or allowed to say
anything," he laughed. 'Tin all in favor of the United States supporting the man who has to carry the responsibility for our foreign affairs,"
was the only endorsement that Ike could give Kennedy for the mishandled Cuban matter. But it was almost enough. At
the
for position. Ike cracked, "This darn near an invasion, isn't it?" There were smiles and handshakes, and in the soft air of spring a tragic week be
to end. to look
moment it meant a lot. The photographers jostled
is
gan
When Kennedy came
back on the episode, he
would declare, "Cuba was a hell of a time."
CHAPTER TEN
BOB
Ar
in
it
reality blew through the White House, and was named Robert Francis Kennedy, aged 35. Only one other man in the nation outranked him
N D of
power and
influence,
and
that
man,
his older brother,
had
help
asked for his aid at a
critical time.
Not only was he
to
Maxwell Taylor assess the Bay of Pigs wreckage, he was also to examine the White House machinery. To those who had known Bob Kennedy from his days as chief counsel on Senator John McClellan's racket-busting committee, this news was a comfort. He was not a popular figure; he was too honest and too blunt and too hard-work ing and too dedicated to the Kennedy cause. But all these
traits
made him
the
man
for
John Kennedy
to use in crucial
trouble shooting. The President never needed to fear the accuracy or the objectivity of reports from Bob. No jealousy was created in
the
White House
staff,
because
Bob Kennedy's unique
posi
tion was established by blood. It was, as Bob moved into his
campaign
days.
He
wore
job, almost like the old several hats. He still was the At
its
new
torney General with the huge Department of Justice and

32,000 employees to administer. He closest confidant on the major issues.
cial office in the
remained the President's
Virtually every day he began his working hours at a spe CIA headquarters. When he left CIA, he of
ten went to the
White House, where he would meet
privately
146
with the President or
at the
CHAPTER TEN:
sit in on policy meetings. And finally, end of the afternoon, he slumped, almost lost from view, in the deep rear seat of his Cadillac and sped down
Pennsylvania Avenue to the Justice Department to begin his normal work. His staff at the Justice Department stayed with him far into every night. He lined up the couches and the chairs in his office as if he were conducting classes, and long after most people were on their second martini, the staff members, who had assembled their questions and reports in precise lan guage to save time, poured through his office on the double. Byron (Whizzer) White, the former Rhodes scholar and
all-American football player, now Deputy Attorney General and later to become a Justice of the Supreme Court, shoul
dered most of the load, growing thin as he juggled two jobs. The image was familiar to all who had watched Bob Ken
nedy on the campaign. There had then been no limit to his effort. He used to fret that if he did not do just one little thing more, it might be the thing that would lose the elec tion. He always had time for a bit more, he always harbored an ounce of reserve energy for that extra work. Now he sat
late at night in his
tie
cavernous Justice Department
office, his
pulled down, his collar gaping. Sometimes he and White threw a football back and forth just to relieve the monoto nous paper work. In late April Bob Kennedy paused a moment toward one
8 P.M.
He swung a
foot
up on
his desk
over that mass of nondescript hair.
hand down The phone on his desk
and ran
his
rang
softly.
His wife, Ethel, was
calling.
listened.
He said quickly, "I can't go. You afterward and pick me up." by
For a moment he go alone and come
involved
Then he turned to the grimy business of Cuba. "All of us made mistakes. The President has taken the respon
sibility, but it was everybody's fault." Such was the general conclusion forming in those long hours with Maxwell Tay
lor.
His regard rose for one of the

Dulles,
men
in the tragedy. Allen
impressed
who planned to retire before the new year began, Bob Kennedy with his behavior. He got the ulti
is
mate Kennedy compliment. "Dulles
a man," said Bob.
Bob Kennedy
147
"He never complained, he took all the blame on himself." Dulles had wanted a bigger air strike in the final moments of the invasion planning, but he had been overruled by the Allen Dulles was to retire with the praise State
Department.
of the
the corners of the White House and watched. Henceforth he would be included in National Security Council meetings and in many of the small sessions on national security. In the immediate aftermath of the Cuban bungle, Bob Kennedy began to spot difficulties. At a National Security Council meeting on the Saturday morning following the un successful invasion, he noted that awe or fear of the Presi
Kennedy brothers. Bob Kennedy searched into

listened
and
dent sometimes interfered with honest answers, that the ca reer men upon whom Kennedy had to rely tended to agree
with him more than they would have out of his presence. They held back, waited to see how the President felt before a corner be they talked. Bob, in an inconspicuous chair in
hind and to the
left of
the President, saw
how some
of the
officials spoke up more even in the moments the President was out of the Cabinet Room. First note: get better and more frank communication between the top people and the Presi
dent.
Both Kennedys had adopted an immediate and searching as the Cuban skepticism of government institutions as soon venture had gone sour. As they looked back over the debris, men. They saw peo they grew even more wary of the career were more in crucial instances loyal to their depart ple who ments than they were to the President of the United States or to the country as a whole. Worried about their futures and fearful lest they commit a blunder that would set them back
in that long, unimaginative climb up the civil-service ladder, efforts they hesitated to experiment. Their ideas and their
were based on the sure and
safe way. It was John Kennedy's contention that in these hours the old cliches were a road to
certain defeat in the cold war, that now, as many times in the past, ideas and actions had to have imagination and often risk to meet the severe challenges. "The President won't as sume anything from now on," said Bob Kennedy. "Simply
because a
man
is
supposed to be an expert in his
field will
CHAPTER TEN:
not qualify him to the President/'
What the Kennedys sought among the government men was some of that quality that they developed in their cam paign organization. It had been, in a sense, an amateur per formance. In another sense it was a very professional per
formance.
to talk about his early days in politics. watched the so-called experts. They came around to headquarters, sat behind big desks smoking cigars and tell ing stories. They had a few handbills printed, went out and made a few speeches and posed for newspaper pictures. "No body worked/* remembered Bob. It was all right as long as everybody acted the same way. But the Kennedys changed
Bob Kennedy used
He had
the picture in Massachusetts. Everybody winked when John Kennedy in 1952 made Bob Kennedy his campaign manager
for his Senate race.
Bob was
26.
But Bob Kennedy worked.
licked envelopes, rang doorbells, talked to people and made sure that everybody else in the organization did too. The result was that John Kennedy beat the unbeatable
He
Henry Cabot Lodge for the U.S. Senate. And when they went to the 1960 Democratic convention,
matters had been
sipped their whiskey in hotel rooms ured that was all there was to it.
years
The old-style pols had and told stories and fig But for months even John Kennedy's young men had been all over the
the same.
much
country talking to the delegates.
When
the convention came,
they had commitments on paper. They knew they would win. Such were the Kennedy amateurs. They questioned every premise. They accepted no one's word, they had to see things for themselves. They were realists. They wanted facts,
facts.
not judgments. They made the judgments when they got the They introduced into American politics an element of
procedure that changed it drastically. Now, as the awful event of Cuba began to fade, they sought this quality in the federal government. That's why John Kennedy called for his brother immedi
scientific
that's why the 3 2 -year-old Ted Sorensen moved into the field of foreign policy. Their knowledge quietly and experience was limited, but their approach was proven.
ately,
And
This was
to
be the
essential
change resulting from the Cu-
Bob Kennedy
1-4Q
it
ban debacle.
To many
was disappointing. Wholesale
fir
the traditional ings, power realignment, job transfers are stuff of action. But none of these occurred. The important
changes were to be made in the minds of the President and of those around him. Though in the immediate hours following the Bay of Pigs
the President offered his brother Allen Dulles' job, it was not a particularly serious offer. Bob felt it far too sensitive
and covert
a post for a
Kennedy family man
to accept.
Should
something go wrong or, for that matter, go right the op erations were so secret that critics could accuse the Kennedys
of building a secret-police organization.
Secretary
eral for
John
Bob preferred Navy Maxwell or Taylor, the retired gen Connally
he developed more and more regard as he worked with him and who very soon would be made a spe cial military and intelligence adviser to the President.
whom
There was talk of Bob leaving the Justice Department and coming in some special capacity to the White House. It was only talk, however. Bob did not want to leave the Justice Department where he was in hot pursuit of his enemy, Jimmy Hoffa, not to mention his plans for new attacks on
crime.
The
State
questioning gaze of both Kennedys turned toward the Department. The great gray formless mass that
sprawled in Foggy Bottom was a baffling element to this gov ernment. Kennedy's displeasure with the performance from State registered early. When he had asked that letters of
thanks be sent to the heads of state
ings
who had
sent
him
greet
he had scanned some early drafts and been displeased at what he read. He ordered some of the letters rewritten, an unheard-of request in the State Depart ment in recent years, and even on the second attempt he had not been pleased; he finally sat down in his office and dic
office,
when he took
tated his
own replies.
Such little items had plagued Kennedy for weeks. He had not been unprepared for troubles at State, some warnings hav ing been given to him by his father about Roosevelt's difficul ties with the State Department. No president could seem to make the department work the way he wanted it to. (At dinner one night with friends the President chuckled appre-
CHAPTER TEN
datively when the solution was suggested of setting up an office outside the department with about thirty highly tal ented men who would actually handle the nation's foreign
affairs,
while the State Department could continue to shuffle world without being dis papers and live in its civil-service
turbed.) In the hours after the
Cuban
failure
Kennedy had asked
in the State Departfor some new policy ideas. men had been set to work drafting papers. Some ten days later the papers were ready, and it fell on the unlucky Chester Bowles, in the absence of Dean Rusk, to make the
The minds
presentation at the
White House. The National Council was summoned, and Bob Kennedy was also
Security
present,
Bowles presentation was taking his place in the corner. The a disturbing collection of generalities. There were few ideas for action; it was a "soft line" proposal which added up to
little
more than tongue clucking. Chin down, looking up from under bushy eyebrows, Bob Kennedy spoke. "This is worthless/' he said. "What can we do about Cuba? This doesn't tell us." For five minutes Bob
gamely but he was no match for the President's brother
tatters.
Kennedy continued was done, it hung in

to defend
it,
to tear at the policy report. Chester Bowles had tried
When
he
mood. There was an awkward silence before the President quietly changed the subject. But before the meeting had ended, the President had assigned a task force under Assistant Secre new proposals for tary of Defense Paul Nitze to draw up
in that
Cuba.
As they had discussed the idea for centralizing authority

for every critical area, the Kennedy brothers had also con cluded that the men in charge of these areas should be fight
men "hard liners/' in the jargon of policy politics. The men at the State Department, reasoned Kennedy, spent their
ing
lives trying to solve
problems without fighting. It was against the nature of the department personnel to want to use or show force. At the head of the task force overseeing South
he put Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gildid stay in the State Department patric. But for Berlin he and named Foy Kohler, a realistic career man.
east Asia
Bob Kennedy
Within the White House Bob Kennedy found the chan communication to be haphazard. Too many people were going directly to the President, too many people did not know what other people were doing. To tidy up this situ ation, orders went out that all national security matters were to be channeled through McGeorge Bundy's office. He was to be the man who knew what everybody was doing and
nels of
thinking.
Counterinsurgency became the password. It was given new emphasis in military training, and within the mufti ranks a
special five-week course in counterinsurgency was set up for the top officers in the national security area. part-time
counterinsurgency school in
Panama was expanded
to give
FBI training
to
South Americans.
The departments, particularly Defense, began to watch their own operations more closely and to tighten up whereever they could. They made such discoveries as that one
fourth of the supply of torpedoes had no batteries to run
them; they found stocks of guns without ammunition.
While the military and intelligence phases of the Cuban operation had failed miserably, John Kennedy's own politi cal performance in the wake of disaster had worked rather well. Besides Ike, Kennedy had talked in private with each
of the three other leading Republicans: Richard Nixon, Sen ator Barry Goldwater and New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Kennedy had explained to each man what had
happened, he had admitted his own misjudgments and he had then asked for any advice they might offer. While Ken nedy did not ask them to refrain from public criticism of
him, the gesture of seeking them out in confidence was enough to forestall any bitter outbursts. Across the country the natural tendency to sympathize with their President in times of trouble caught hold of the people. Mail to the White House (8,000 letters in the first week)
was generally sympathetic and understanding, only one out of every four being critical. The press still retained its liking for Kennedy, and though there w as some stern criticism, through it ran tones of sympathy for a new president. One of the ironies of that dim time was that precisely
r
CHAPTER TEN:
when
the
Cuban venture was
collapsing, the
Kennedy
leg
program was beginning to move through Congress. There had been in the beginning of April a gentle swell of criticism the Congress, as usual, was dawdling in its inter minable committee sessions. And the press, as usual, was writing that Congress was on dead center. Kennedy the actionist, as usual, was a victim of his own history. It was expected that Kennedy would produce action. When the Congress kept to its own timetable, the journalists blamed
islative
Kennedy.
The week before the barges began their move toward the Cuban beach, Congress had cranked out a group of favorable votes in one house or the other on new federal judges, in
creased social security benefits, a minimum wage of $1.25 an hour, aid for dependent children and money for depressed areas. These mild good tidings were buried in the avalanche
of bitter news.
The
ally
rest of the
world beyond the shores of Cuba gradu
came back
into focus.
Kennedy summoned the congres
sional leadership of both parties to the White House. Seated at the huge table in the Cabinet Room, with charts to illus
which was
trate his points, the President outlined the Laotian situation, still in a dizzying decline. The alternatives for this
country, explained Kennedy, ranged

to active military engagement,
from
total
withdrawal
something that none of his men wanted unless military nothing else would work. The one hope, Kennedy explained, was to keep pushing for a cease fire and a neutral Laos. When the congressional leaders had heard the full story, none of them wanted us to plunge into a war in Laos. As they drove back to the Capitol, the best evaluation that any of them could give of the Laotian situation was that it was a "mess." As May came, the editorial sympathy for Kennedy, which had followed so closely on the Cuban failure, began to wear
thin. Everything
suddenly became the President's
fault.
The
trouble in Laos and his insistence that
we
neither fight nor
run but
was irritatingly vague and not at all like He was indirectly blamed for the space flight of Russian Yuri Gagarin, because he had not yet decided what this country should do in space.
try to talk
the clear-cut decisions Americans desired.
Bob Kennedy
K9
Even the small matters were thrown up to him. When Herb Klotz, a minor official in the Department of Commerce, sent a memo around his department stating that Kennedy's name ought to be mentioned more in department speeches so as to
better play in the papers, the newsmen gleefully jumped on the hapless dispatch, they labeled it the "Klotz Botch" and Pierre Salinger was forced publicly to proclaim
give
it
that the
felt that
White House was not behind
it,
that, indeed, it
was
the President was getting his
name
in the papers
often enough.
In
days.
many ways
these were to be the President's loneliest
disappointed in some ways in himself, and he began to re-examine his personal working regimen, con cluding that he had been trying to do too much, to see too many people. The result was that he was always "on the fringe of irritability/' to use his words. He needed more rest and more calm, and he began quietly to alter his schedules. A close family friend noted then that John Kennedy was more removed than ever before. One night he was in the White House with a group of friends, talking and joking and moving informally from room to room, when he was sud denly missed; they found him in his room going over papers. Often now, he walked impatiently out of movies and he
He seemed
joked
less.
One evening as
the sun
fell
into the
Potomac and the great
spotlights picked out the Washington Monument, John Ken nedy said, "I'm going to give this damned job to Lyndon."
but it was a measure of his frustration. For the time being he seemed to have lost all control of the big machine of government. Nothing he wanted seemed to be done when or how he wanted it done. His major project Cuba had failed. There was more talk of Berlin trouble. Laos seemed almost hopeless.
did not
it,
He
mean
He wondered privately about the wisdom of John Foster Dulles' great pattern of alliances, seemingly made with aban don in the days when the country had no military equal and
could assure complete protection to any nation, no matter
where on the globe. "When you look around the world," Kennedy said, and he gestured with his right hand in a sweeping arch, "when you
CHAPTER TEN
and night
look at the whole vast periphery which we alone guard day we alone stand between the Russians and the
free world
He
also
was a
Cuba doesn't seem so important." little angry. "If people knew
the
facts,
there
would be less criticism of Laos," he rasped. That problem and the space enigma had
in the past. tration to solve
their roots
deep
How
could rational
in a
men
expect a
new adminis
them
hundred days?
slipped away once to New York, and there, high in the Waldorf Towers, he met with General Douglas MacArthur. The old general, in a bit of grim humor, said about this na
He
tion's position in the world,
"The chickens
to
are
coming home
to roost
now. You happen
be in charge of the chicken

doors in his
office
house."
One day Kennedy went to the French
and
stood inhaling the air. The south lawn was a sparkling new green, the flame of azaleas adding a gaudy trim. The Presi
dent dropped into the rocking chair that by now had become a national symbol. He poured himself a cup of tea, tipped in some cream and broke a piece of sugar in half, dropped it in
with a plop and stirred agitatedly. "What gets me," he said, "is that all these people seem to want me to fail. I don't understand that. If I don't succeed,
there
may not be another president." Then suddenly he shrugged and admitted
that criticism,
whether out of ignorance or malice, was part of the burden of the job. Though the mess in Laos had developed before
and though the lag in space had a decade were now John Kennedy's problems begun ago, they as if he created them. He had asked for the much as had just chance to solve them, he had this chance now.
his administration took office
for silence and secrecy as he plotted the coun was another of his frustrations. If this was to be try's strategy a poker game with the Soviets, he was certainly not going to reveal his hand. He continued to caution his advisers about talking and about the need for the utmost security. Silence, however, meant that a great many questions about our inten tions and our policy had to go unanswered; and unanswered questions breed criticism.
The need
Bob Kennedy
f^ fi
There came driblets of good news in these days, but noth ing could change the somber hues of the headlines. "I just want to say you have a minimum-wage bill/' Larry O'Brien had reported over the phone when the Senate gave the bill a final okay. A cease-fire agreement was reached in
Laos,
and
for the
moment hopes bounded up
in the
White
House.
Kennedy put Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to work revising our military outlook so that we could fight the guerrilla wars we suddenly found ourselves confronted with, along with additional strengthening of our nuclear and con ventional forces. The first hundred days of office had con vinced him that we had to be stronger. And we would plan for civil defense, too. His idea was to give most of the civildefense task to the Defense Department. The space chal his mind when lenge, which he had pushed to the back of
Cuba had come
along,
All these plans probably a huge deficit for his
now demanded more of his attention. would mean billions more in tax money,
first
year in
office.
To
that
present this
he would either to be sent up to the Capitol or to be delivered by him self, depending on the circumstances at the time. There was in all this planning some of the promise of the Kennedys as viewed in the campaign. But it was still promise the action was yet to come, the enemy yet to be beaten, and in fact, the government yet to be run as John Kennedy
program to Congress, Kennedy decided develop a second State of the Union message
had
said.
CHAPTER ELEVEJf
LIFT
FROM ABOVE
TH
was
E valiant try which fails but is born of heroic in tentions often wins from Americans as much ad
as
miration
does triumph. Apparently Americans so
regarded the Bay of Pigs. President John Kennedy's popularity with the voting pub lic, as measured by George Gallup, climbed to a stunning
("My God/' said Kennedy when he bad as Eisenhower.") What was this element that appealed to people at a time when Kennedy had missed so far in Cuba and waged a form less battle of words over Laos? It was sincerity, the deep de
83 per cent in April.
told. "It's as
sire to
do the best job

effort.
it
as President
as
no personal
watched
The drama,
he knew how and to spare millions of Americans now
on
their
TV
screens each week, was better than
soap opera. Its focal point was the worried face of a young man with an amusing accent trying desperately to do a job
anybody could tell you was impossible, was beyond the bounds of human capability.
skepticism that breeds in the unhealthy political low lands of Washington had not infected the rest of the nation.
The
When
Gallup
pollsters inquired,
Americans said they liked
Kennedy, Cuba and all.

Yet the
ers,
political experts, the pundits, the so-called think
nibble a
Georgetown dens or their office suites can if he listens. And they had started. "We're going to watch him more closely now," said a
their
from
man
to death
Lift
from Above
little
KY
high-ranking Democrat. "There's a Cuba. We're taking a second look/'
pause because of
On
eyes
the cocktail circuit the

carne
New Frontiersmen
dipped their
when Cuba
great
up and
tried halfheartedly to switch
the subject.
A
nedy
many
of the Democrats
who had
joined the
Ken
legion after victory
now
giving. One more sour act, you so" status.
on the edge and they would revert to

teetered
of mis
"I told
"I wonder now if I judged Ike right?" came a question from a disturbed politician. "Give us the man of Omaha Beach Dwight Eisenhower/' exclaimed an editor. Then, on May 5, like a gentle, cooling rain in a drought, came Alan B. Shepard. While the whole world watched, the slender astronaut rode a great, bellowing Atlas missile into space and back
again.
His flight in the nose cone of that silver beast was faultless. His recovery from the Atlantic Ocean was precise. America had put a man into space. It was only a fleeting visit, fifteen minutes as compared to Yuri Gagarin's hour and a half, but
it
had been done in the open, with millions of American
television sets scanning every intimate detail of the prepara tion and the blast-off. This was how free men did things.
On
that
morning Kennedy had summoned
his National
Security Council into session for another meeting on the deepening world trouble.
As Shepard waited for the end of the countdown in the cone of that missile pointed up from the sands of Cape Ca naveral, the New Frontier in Washington was frankly nerv
pad would further discredit But there was no other choice. Every precaution had been taken. Project Mercury had to go
ous.
A disaster on
the launching
the bruised administration.
ahead.
On an open line from the Cape to Pierre Salinger's office came the word that the launching was just twelve minutes
away. Associate Press Secretary Andy Hatcher notified Secre tary Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, who, at five minutes before launch
ing,
broke into the
NSC
meeting in the Cabinet Room.
The
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
men
set
streamed into Mrs. Lincoln's office, where a television had been hooked up. Kennedy stood in silence as the ominous numbers ticked off. Jackie came through the door to join her husband. And
Lyndon Johnson, nervous in the stillness, opened up a direct phone line to James Webb, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration head, to try to be closer to the soul of the
project.
rocket belched flame and smoke and slowly rose from pad. In the White House there was unspoken prayer as the Atlas gained momentum. It disappeared from the probing
its
The
eye of the
TV camera and the men
and women in Mrs. Lin
coln's office shifted some.
Then came
the
a tense wait and finally on Salinger's open line
of rescue. Hatcher burst into the President's pres ence. "The astronaut is in the helicopter. The pilot says he
word
appears normal and in good shape." John Kennedy let a smile creep over his face that said a million pounds had just been lifted off his back, then he
turned to those around him and said quietly, "It's a success." The country had a hero, and for the moment Laos and Berlin and Kennedy and Khrushchev were all forgotten.
Alan Shepard was the man who counted.
The Washington
political
Post' s venerable Eddie Folliard, ageless and reporter dry-witted elder of the White House
press corps, considers himself,
among
other things, the best
living authority on Washington parades. By self-appointment is the Post's parade editor. He has covered that famous mile from the iron gates of the White House up Pennsyl
he
vania Avenue to the looming dome of the Capitol as long as he can remember. There was inauguration day for Teddy Roosevelt in 1905, and in Eddie's mind there is one of those vague childhood images of the cheers and the bands and the beaming T.R. He watched the triumphal return of "Black
Jack" Pershing after

there was
World War I, and to the young Folliard day than when Washington paid tribute to this hero. He saw Taf t and Wilson and Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt and Truman, all go that mile on a ribbon of cheers. Then came a day after World War II when anno
finer
Lift
from Above
KQ
other soldier had his turn. Dwight David Eisenhower, with out any advance preparation, climbed into a command car
and inched along the route
as
thousands and thousands of
people cried their thanks to the general. Eddie Folliard followed Alan Shepard,
and when
it
it
was
over he said there had not been anything like mile of the avenue.
along his
There was not the massive crowd of Pershing's day when a parade was planned for weeks, and was the biggest event of the year, although there were some 250,000, more than turned out to see John Kennedy inaugurated. But there
welled up along those packed sidexvalks a spontaneous cry of tribute to this navy commander which had not been heard
streets for many a year. "I think these people are genuinely hungering for a hero," said Eddie as he rode behind Shepard's own car. "It's been so
on the Washington
long."
For twenty-seven minutes the caravan crawled along the avenue past the Treasury Building, where the employees stood between the huge columns, by the ancient Willard
Hotel and the Archives Building. Five and six deep the peo ple massed on the sidewalks, every mouth open in a cheer.
Shepard and his pretty wife sat on the back of the rear seat of a cream Lincoln convertible and grinned until their jaws
ached.
did not disperse when the Shepards had passed waited to peer at the other astronauts, who followed but by in the cars behind. For the first time the public knew of the
The crowd
courage and dedication of this hardy band of servicemen. There were homemade signs along the route and some hast
gathered confetti. But mostly there were just people, with a warm and lusty shout for a man who had triumphed at a
ily
the country needed a triumph. wing of the gleaming Capitol stood Speaker Rayburn, glowering and shouting at the horde
time
when
On
the steps of the Senate
of photographers to clear the way for the hero and his wife. Alan Shepard had gone the mile in glory. For the moment,
at least, Eddie Folliard ranked
it as
the best chapter in his
thick
book of Washington parade history.
CHAPTER TWELVE
URGE TO TALK
TH
E boss has to get off in some lonely corner," grunted a hurried White House aide as he shook the Washing
ton rain drops off his coat, grabbed a straw hat and shouldered his golf clubs. The President headed for Palm Beach for four days of rest and contemplation. He wanted a break from the world of
meetings and cables and phone calls, he wanted to view his problems from a distance; Washington is a city of stifling
narrowness.
Should he go back to the Congress in person to deliver his new message at the end of the month? How much should he ask for new space projects, for new arms and training for be billions," guerrilla warfare? "It may be millions, it may said one staff member as he jammed the confidential docu ments into
his brief case.
econ questions, too. Should the lagging a new the arm with a shot in legislative package of omy get bills? Was the foreign-aid program adequate? spending
There were other
How far should he go with civil-defense plans,
a controversial
program under any circumstances? Much of the shock of Cuba had worn off now. There was House. Kennedy had a gleam anticipation around the White
in his eye. "We're
on
Jr.
the brink of a lot of things now/' said
Arthur Schlesinger,
"There's a feeling that the next ten days are crucial," added Fred Holborn, a White House special assistant.
Urge
to
Talk
thoughts of Cuba were pushed back more often, were not they dropped completely. Kennedy was eager to get on with whatever political and economic isolation this coun try could enforce. And then there was the chance that Castro
Though
might provoke us into action. If that time ever came, the Marines would be ready. There was also to be more pressure on the other Latin countries to hurry up with their internal reforms if they wanted to continue to share in American aid. Nor were Southeast Asia's immediate problems forgotten.
The
President had dispatched his restless Vice President, Lyndon B. Johnson, on a colorful round-the-world trip, ac
companied by Kennedy's brother-in-law Stephen Smith and South Vietnam and Thai land and promise them more United States help and also just show himself to the leaders and the people and convince them of our sincerity. The situation was rather frenzied. "We're just trying to keep our head above water/' confessed Bob Kennedy. "It's
his wife, to talk with the leaders in
tough."
himself, viewing everything that be done and the huge cost involved, and hearing that old question about whether the citizens of this country would respond to a call for sacrifice, said grimly, "We're go
And John Kennedy

to
needed
ing to give them their chance/'
The
stories
fact that
Kennedy had regained most

fiasco
since the
Cuban
was evident in his
of his vitality irritation over news
about his inadequacies. start doing like Eisenhower and have my staff cut up the paper/' he said at one point. Indeed, life was beginning to flood back into the White House after its heart had faltered over Cuba. There was the old cheer again, there was also a new tone of humility and a
"I'm going to
new wariness.
Thus, Kennedy climbed into the scarlet-snouted Air Force jet and flew south with Jackie and their friends Mr. and Mrs.
Charles Spaulding of
New York.
of mystery about him as he took up residence in the house of the Charles Wrightsmans, who had
There was an element
left their
home
at the close of the Florida season. Reporters

it.
sensed
it
but could not identify
CHAPTER TWELVE:
In early June, Kennedy was to visit France and hold talks with Charles de Gaulle. That trip had been on the books for
weeks. There was talk also of visiting other European coun tries, certainly normal practice for a President who would take time to fly to Europe. stopover to see Harold Macmil-
though not announced yet, was on the schedule. What prevented Pierre Salinger from announcing a com plete itinerary? The chubby news secretary kept leaving the presidential schedule open. To NBC's Sander Vanocur the performance was singular. On all other occasions when vague statements were made he could slip into a White House staff office and get some guidance as to what was on the President's mind. But not now. In Palm Beach Vanocur mulled the problem, and he manu
lan,
factured himself quite a story. He knew that Kennedy would go somewhere else besides Paris for an important meeting.
He got an atlas and went over the geography of every world trouble spot. None of them made much sense Laos, Iran,
Kennedy certainly would not journey to these Vanocur picked up the Miami Herald and was idly go ing through the news columns when an item hit his eye. Nikita Khrushchev had made another speech and had said some things about Kennedy. There was nothing unusual about that, but what he said about Kennedy was so mild
the Congo;
areas.
almost friendly. It was out of character for the Russian. Van-
mind clicked. Were Kennedy and Khrushchev going meet some place in Europe? The supposition made sense. He thought over the problem, then got on the phone to Washington. It was Sunday and a hard time to get news sources, but he persisted, and in a few hours he had enough
ocur's to
to convince
him it was true.
Vanocur tracked Pierre Salinger down in his room. He had just come from the golf course and was relaxing with a Heineken's beer. "I hear you've been working overtime," was Sal inger's greeting to Vanocur. With that, Vanocur knew his lead was hot. Already the men he had phoned had reported back to the White House. "Unless there is some overriding reason of national secu rity, I'm going ahead with the story," Vanocur told Salinger. "I can't stop you," answered Salinger. That was the final
Urge
to
Talk
clue
meeting had been seeping out in other places. The New York Times' Drew Middleton in London had gotten a tip on it a week before and had passed it on to Scotty Reston in Washington, who had hinted at it in a column of his a few days before. The French, too, had gotten a sniff from their government. But the story had not
As
Vanocur needed. it turned out, word
of the
fully and plainly until Vanocur's flash on NBC. was an amazing thought. Kennedy, who had been avoid ing a summit meeting with determination, now was to meet with Khrushchev while the memory of Cuba was still fresh.
come out
It
The idea of meeting the wily Russian leader, a veteran of such encounters, while Kennedy's own prestige as a leader was at a low point was criticized by some. Kennedy did not
back away.
word came out about the projected meet ing, the White House kept silent. The final acceptance of the time and the place (June 4 and 5 in Vienna) had not been made official yet. Soviet Ambassador Mikhail Menshikov had called the White House only two days before to ask
the
first
When
for an
appointment
to deliver the
formal acceptance.
He
was
scheduled to drop by the following Tuesday. At that time the
White House would announce the plan.
Kennedy
insisted that this
meeting was not
to
be a summit
meeting in any sense.
did not want to play a part in any Khrushchev act which would build world hopes for goodwill
He
and peace out of noble-sounding phrases which the Russian would then ignore, as had been the case at Geneva in 1955 and Camp David in 1959. Yet Kennedy wanted to look at Khrushchev. He wanted to hear him talk, listen to his words and watch him as he sat
This was part of the Kennedy technique. person was sometimes worth all the diplomatic And dispatches. Kennedy wanted Khrushchev to see Ken too. If the Premier had the idea that Kennedy's Soviet nedy, actions in Laos and Cuba indicated weakness, he thought that a face-to-face meeting would dispel that impression.
across the table.
One
visit in
The meeting had been a long time aborning, and after the Cuban incident Kennedy had thought it was dead. Khru
shchev had revived
it.
Each man wanted
to see the other.
CHAPTER TWELVE:
As
far
back
as
December
ing his
government, the
first
of 1960, when Kennedy was form hints that Khrushchev would
welcome an encounter with Kennedy were dropped by Am bassador Menshikov in a round of unusually friendly lunches
with key New Frontiersmen. "Let's think about this/' said Kennedy, already intrigued. When U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson came to
Washington
at the start of the
some kind
top-level consultation, of meeting with Khrushchev.
Kennedy administration he brought with him more feelers
for
for
Kennedy talked the idea over with Lyndon Johnson, Dean Rusk and three former
ambassadors to the Soviet Union: Averell Harriman, George Kennan and Charles Bohlen. The consensus was that it might be worthwhile. "I think we'll go and see Khrushchev/' Ken
nedy said.
Thompson reasoned
if it
that a
could be controlled.
Much
meeting would be a good thing of the Soviet policy, he told
Kennedy, was based on Khrushchev's personal estimate of government heads. If arrangements for this session could be made in secret, followed by a quick announcement only a short time before the meeting, there would not be time enough for great waves of hope to build up around the world about the possible outcome. Results, no matter what, would thus not be disappointing. Such a meeting would take the urgency out of the cry for an honest-to-goodness summit. Further, said Thompson, it would be good to see Khrushchev before the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. The fact that he had not talked to Khrushchev was prov ing to be a psychological barrier to President Kennedy. All of his big policy moves nuclear testing, settlement in Laos, strengthening NATO were affected by what the Soviets thought and said. A clearer idea of what to expect from the Russians might come at a meeting with the Premier. The un committed nations were in some instances sitting on their hands waiting for a Kennedy-Khrushchev encounter to help
guide their own futures. The reasons for such a meeting,
his advisers, far
it
seemed
to
Kennedy and
important
self to
as
anything
outnumbered the reasons against it. And as else, Kennedy had confidence in him
table.
perform well at the conference
Urge
to
Talk
gg
Ambassador Thompson packed a letter from the new Presi dent in his brief case and flew back to Moscow to find Khru
hope for a meeting, possibly in late spring, in a neutral European city. Thomp son finally caught up with the touring Khrushchev in No vosibirsk, Siberia, on March 9. The Russian leader liked the idea and told Thompson so. In late March Gromyko came to the White House for his talk with Kennedy about Laos. Again the matter came up
letter expressed
shchev.
The Kennedy
about a Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting. The President said he was willing, and Gromyko assured Kennedy that Khru shchev would still like it. Kennedy, too, felt the urge, because his talk with Gromyko left him feeling "off target." Kennedy liked to deal with the top people. Two weeks later, Khru shchev was walking in the garden of his Sochi villa with
columnist Walter Lippmann. Kennedy were going to meet.
He
told
Lippmann
that he
and
forgot the idea of a meeting with the Soviet boss, but Khrushchev did not. On May 4
Then came Cuba. Kennedy
Thompson reported from Moscow that the Russians wanted to know if Kennedy was still interested in meeting. There were hints that the Russian might overlook Cuba in his
thus avoiding a major point of United States rassment. Kennedy remained willing, and the date was
talks,
embar
set.
Frontier began to gird itself for the conference table. It was to be a formidable line-up of meetings first Charles de Gaulle, then Nikita Khrushchev and finally Harold
The New
Macmillan.
But before any
of this, there were

visit to
some other
tasks. First
among them was Kennedy's
Canada, his
initial
ven
ture outside the country. It held its unpleasant surprise. Only a short while after landing and being grandly greeted
by Canada's Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and an elite corps of scarlet-coated Mounties, President Kennedy walked out onto the gently sloping lawn of Ottawa's Government
House
to plant
his visit.
The
tree
a small red oak tree as a lasting memory of was to go along with those planted by other
presidents.
party walked from the house, just after Kennedy had taken Diefenbaker aside to tell him of his plans for a meeting
The
'
CHAPTER TWELVE:
with Khrushchev. Kennedy took the silver shovel handed to him and leaned over to shovel up some of the neat pile of
black earth.
it happened. As he bent to scoop, there was a sharp pain in his back, deep in the lower lumbar region. It was not a severe pain; the horde of photographers and reporters and visitors did not see a wince. Yet the pain was an unmistakable
Then
signal that his back
was
to trouble
had plagued him
since his school
him again. A bad back days, when he ruptured a

after
disc playing football.
There had been weeks of pain
the old injury recurred when in World War II his PT boat was rammed and cut in two by a Japanese destroyer. He had almost died when infection set in, following an unsuccessful
spine fusion in 1954. At last he thought he had licked the trouble. All through the campaign he had ignored his back,
scrambling over
He had
cares
cars, being pulled and shoved by crowds. stood on his feet for hours, played golf and swum.
There had been no

were the most
night, as
trouble.
And now, when
his
government
ounces
severe, just the slight pressure of a few of dirt in a shovel had done what nothing else could.
Kennedy stood in the glittering reception a dull and distressingly familiar ache set in. greeting guests, He told no one. Those at the reception found him to be as
cheerful as ever.
That
When
the wife of Canada's Defense Pro
duction Minister
relatives in
Raymond O'Hurley told Kennedy that her Ohio and Connecticut had all voted for him, he
name
like
grinned back, "Well, with a

should."
O'Hurley, they
When
Kennedy run against me."
the two-day visit was over, Diefenbaker joked to a aide, "I hope he doesn't come across the border and
The visit, by everybody's measure, had been a success.

But now, as Kennedy faced toward Paris and Vienna, he had one more problem. Tiny as the sore spot was, it could creep through a man's whole system.
week before his departure for Europe, Ken nedy laid down the law around the White House. He wanted as much time as possible for himself. He laid out an inten sive amount of study on all the world issues. He asked for a
In the
final
Urge to Talk
series of briefings
from the experts. And he wanted time to how he should act, what he should say. ponder Appointments were cut to a minimum. Handshakers and wellwishers were whisked out of his office in seconds. Formal ceremonies were trimmed. Kennedy did find for himself long
hours of solitude.
liked the study, the diet of memorandums. "This is a game/' said an aide, "this mental combat; it's a hell of a
He
subjects they thought he should familiarize himself with. They poured in, inches deep. A black leather loose-leaf notebook was prepared on each of the three major personalities, so that Kennedy would know their
and he likes it." Kennedy had asked the prepare papers on all the
challenge,
State
Department days before
to
ways.
find Charles de Gaulle's memoirs.
While he was in Palm Beach, he sent an aide scurrying to He had read them once, but now he wanted to read them again, to study them and
be able
to
When
to quote key phrases. Senator Hubert Humphrey came
down
to
the
White House on other business, he was collared by the Presi dent and questioned about his famous eight-hour conversa tion with Khrushchev in 1959. How had Khrushchev carried off the conversations, Kennedy wanted to know. How had he
reacted to
Humphrey? The President asked
that the sena
tor prepare a the Soviet boss.
memo
for him, a sort of personality sketch of Humphrey, delighted, went to the Hill and
put his ideas on paper. Walter Lippmann was asked to the White House for lunch, and Kennedy listened to Lippmann's account of his Russian visit. The New York Times' Scotty Reston weighed in with his opinions at another lunch. There were voluntary memos from a legion of staff members and self-appointed Russian
experts.
Kennedy sought out the quiet and solid guidance of for mer Ambassador Chip Bohlen and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson was asked for
his views
on NATO. Arthur Dean, the chubby nuclear-testban negotiator, flew back from Geneva. A test ban was to be a key item in the Kennedy-Khrushchev talks.
-.gQ
CHAPTER TWELVE:
French historian and journalist Raymond Aron came to White House at Kennedy's request and left the President with some of his writings. Henry Kissinger journeyed from Harvard to give Kennedy his latest ideas on Berlin. This endless search for clues to the men and the issues was a spectacle that the State Department had not seen for years
the
if,
indeed, ever.
that there never
Some State Department career men said had been such thorough preparation for an
international meeting.
Kennedy asked and received from the files every previous conversation that American statesmen had had with Nikita
Khrushchev.
He
read every word.
He
studied minutely
all
the give and take of the previous summit meetings. And this was not enough. He sent for a collection of Khrushchev's
major speeches, and

eyes.
these
he devoured with those
restless
The
fine details of conference-table strategy
were
also of
concern to Kennedy. With Rusk and Bohlen and White House aide McGeorge Bundy, he worried over such details
what subjects should be brought up with questions by him, what subjects should be left for Khrushchev to bring up. The President wanted to know if logic worked with the Premier,
as
how tough it was possible to be with him.

Sometimes the White House staff members who hustled and out acted as if they were training a promis ing heavyweight for the title bout. They wanted to have their man in the best shape possible. "An awful lot of life on this planet is one man's assessment of the other," explained Walt Rostow.
the papers in
Kennedy did seem

sense
it
to like these
hours of hard work. In a
was a study of history, of great personalities who shape the world. Kennedy loved no subject more. I went to see him on the eve of this journey to Europe. He
sat in his
rocking chair, crossed his legs, ordered Mrs. Lin coln to fetch him a cigar, lighted it, pondered the notion of Khrushchev through the smoke.
smart. He's
"He's not dumb," said Kennedy at last in low tones. "He's ." Kennedy's voice trailed off as if words
.
were inadequate.
He
raised his left
arm and clenched
his
Urge
fist
to
Talk
1&Q
it in a gesture that was the Kennedy symbol of in was a strength. (It gesture that Kennedy often had used the campaign, when he had seen steelworkers or other con struction men on the job as he had motored through cities.) "Each crisis that I've faced so far in this job has really
and shook
stemmed from
Russia/'
I
parent soon after
took
to
Kennedy continued. "It became ap office that it would be foolish for
continue to battle each other through other parties. There was always the veiy serious chance of misunderstanding or miscalculation. That is lessened when
Khrushchev and
me
you
see
one another."
that he
had two main considerations in these talks. He did not want to make a decision on the re sumption of nuclear tests until he had gone "the last mile." That included talking with Khrushchev himself. The pres sure for more nuclear tests w as mounting in America. Talks with the Russians seemed hopeless, they certainly had been endless and barren of results. The suspicions mounted that
Kennedy declared
the Russians might be cheating with underground testing and it would take this nation, in its present state of nuclear
lassitude,
months
to follow suit.
The
idea of abandoning
all
hope of agreement, of assuming a nuclear testing race, ap palled Kennedy. He grimaced when he talked about it. "We
test and then they test and we have to test again," he said. "And you build up until somebody uses them." The second Kennedy consideration was to warn Khru shchev on Berlin. Week by week the threat became more
There was no trouble to speak of yet, but there were more words from the Kremlin. The President and all his Soviet experts felt that Berlin would be the real trouble spot
real.
of the year. It was in that city that Kennedy felt Khrushchev could make a grave miscalculation. For in Berlin there was
less of
the vagueness that was inherent in Laos. In Berlin
there were specific commitments, specific lines. This coun try would fight for the basic rights it retained in Berlin. War
in Berlin was far
more
likely to bring
on a world
conflict
than was war in Laos.
The
it
President had an agenda of sorts for the meeting. But was to be loose and flexible beyond the two points. He
1>7Q
CHAPTER TWELVE:
wanted nothing to bind and pinch Khrushchev. Laos, the Congo, Iran, Korea any of those subjects could come up in any given order.
The days ticked by and the pace became frantic. Vice President Lyndon Johnson winged back from his world tour
and brought bullish reports from Southeast Asia. "We never heard a hostile voice, never shook a hostile hand. We went to
listen
and
to learn/' said
office.
Lyndon, standing on the porch out
side
Kennedy's
Prince Rainier and Princess Grace (Kelly) came by for lunch. White House greeter Dave Powers was so smitten by the Kelly beauty that he took her hand, said, "Welcome to the White House, Princess/' turned and started up the stairs
before he
remembered
too, Prince."
to whirl
and
stick
out his hand again,
"and you
in the performance of his brother, all-night vigil in his office and with tough talk over the telephone helped to prevent racial rioting in
Kennedy took quiet pride
who
in
an
Montgomery, Alabama,
as
the
Freedom Riders
assaulted
segregation in the South. Bob Kennedy had dispatched 600 U.S. marshals to Montgomery. As Martin Luther King
talked to a mass meeting of Negroes in the First Baptist Church, a mob had gathered outside the church.
The Attorney
General was dressed in blue denim
slacks,
a sports shirt, a dark blue sweater. His hair was mussed, his eyes weary. He put his feet up on his desk as the phone jan
gled.
"What's the situation now?" he asked. "Our
first
job has to
his office.
be
to protect those people."
He
got
up and paced
all
"It's
bad
situation.
Trouble could spread
over the
South."
Alabama's Governor John Patterson moved promptly and decisively to uphold the law, all violence might have been
avoided.
Had
"Get me Patterson/' snapped Bobby. But before the call could be placed, Patterson was on the line. The conversation with Patterson was a long one. The governor's growls could be heard beyond the phone receiver. Bob broke in. "John,
John, what do you
mean
you're being invaded?
Who's invad-
Urge
to
Talk
l^l
You know better than that." Bob explained carefully why the marshals were there, that they would cooperate fully with the National Guardsmen,
ing you, John?
whom Patterson had mobilized. Then Patterson
declared that
the state could protect everyone but Martin Luther King the federal government would have to protect him. The brother of the President exploded. said the Na
Who
tional
Guard couldn't
jutant General
Henry "Have him call me," said the Attorney General. "Have him call me. I want to hear him say it to me. I want to hear
protect King, asked Bob. Graham, the commander?
Was
it
Ad
a general of the United States
Army
say that he can't protect

it
Martin Luther King." Patterson backed down, admitted eral, who was saying it.
was he, not the gen

Patterson
And
talking.
then the tension drained
off as
went on
"John, you're giving a political speech," laughed Bob. talked to King in the besieged church, explaining that the National Guard and marshals could protect the
Then he
if
people
angry.
they stayed in the church. But King was upset and

there, the federal
"We're
phone.
said Bob. "You're in the church.
government is there, Doctor," We're talking on the tele

if
We
had
wouldn't be talking
the federal government
wasn't there."
When
troops
it all
to
ended, no blood had been shed. No regular be flown in, as had been the case in Little
Rock.
There was grumbling in

felt
the Pentagon from those
who had
leaks
the administration lash over Cuba.

is
There were
and
the generals get unhappy. There were planted stories and hoked-up tales of sagging morale (a perpetual ailment in the Pentagon) and unhappy
counterleaks, as
the rule
when
commanders. Kennedy gave the situation only fleeting notice at this busy time. "They're rather delicate flowers over there, aren't they?" he told one general. He became mildly irritated over the storm that brewed on Capitol Hill because he had moved in and personally called
j/72
CHAPTER TWELVE:
prominent Americans and asked that they help in raising

funds to buy 500 heavy tractors to exchange for the captured Cubans. This was Castro's proposition, and Kennedy felt that there was little else he could do. But the White House, with out smoothing the way, proclaimed that the donations would
be tax exempt. Virginia's Harry Byrd had other ideas and promptly announced that the Internal Revenue Service would answer to him as Chairman of the Senate Finance
Committee
if
they allowed such exemptions.
The
ready.
President's second State of the
He had made
his decisions,
Union message was and they were now on
paper. At first he was opposed to going to the Congress in per son. His congressional leaders had counseled against it, fear
ing that an appearance would needlessly raise partisan feel ings. There was also concern that the message might raise the ire of Khrushchev at an unfortunate time.
But by May 24 Kennedy himself had labored long over the speech, and he liked it. If Khrushchev was going to be of fended by the billions more asked for the defense of free dom, then that was the way it would have to be. Kennedy went back to the Capitol himself, again waited
to go
down
the
aisle,
"These are extraordinary times.

nary challenge.
again assessed the State of the Union. And we face an extraordi
Our
this
strength as well as our convictions have
imposed upon
cause."
nation the role of leader in freedom's
Kennedy ticked off two billion dollars' worth of new rec ommendations: reorganization of the .army divisional struc ture, beefing up of its conventional strength, more emphasis on guerrilla warfare; a redoubled space effort; a long-range nationwide civil-defense shelter program; more money for foreign aid and Voice of America. "It is not a pleasure for any President of the United States, as I am sure it was not a pleasure for my predecessors, to come before the Congress and ask for new appropriations which place burdens on our people. I came to this conclusion with some reluctance. But in my judgment this is a most serious time in the life of our country and in the life of free dom around the globe."
Urge
to
Talk
The 43-year-old President became 44 on May zgth. He was toasted in Washington at an immense dinner given by the National Committee at $100 per plate. The same hap pened in Boston as Kennedy flew to Massachusetts for a final two days in Hyannis Port before flying to his European ren dezvous. There was a quiet birthday party with his family on
watched
the Cape. Only the Secret Service and members of the family as the President of the United States hobbled on
crutches into the
the lawn huddled in a gray
weak Cape Cod spring sun and sat down on Navy blanket to read some final
reports for his Khrushchev meeting.
The pain in his back and bothersome. White House physi persistent cian Janet Travell had begun to treat him to ease the ache. Crutches relieved the strain, but Kennedy would not be seen on crutches in public before or during his trip to Europe. He would endure the pain. But while he could, he would try for relief. The hours were few.
had grown
He
flew to
New York on
the
first
leg of the journey.
There
he indulged himself in one of those curious side excursions that seem to occur at the crucial moments of Kennedy's his tory: he went to see the Israeli Premier, Ben-Gurion. The men around the White House like to remember the
meeting
as a classic
example of their
man
in motion.
The
President had a suite on the thirty-first floor of the Waldorf and one hour had been set aside for the meeting. It was ex
pected that the two men would exchange the usual cliches, shake hands and go off to await a more formal meeting in the future to discuss business.
They met
in the living
room
of the suite
in the chairs.
travels in Israel
Kennedy began telling and of his fascination with
and settled down Ben-Gurion of his own

the country.
He
began
to ask the Israeli about his country, to listen to the
answers carefully. Ben-Gurion, a crusty realist himself, was delighted. For two hours, as aides ran frantically to rearrange
the presidential schedule, the two men talked. The meeting ended with a Kennedy thrust of humor. Pointing to aide Myer Feldman, the President said, "How do you think Mike
Feldman would do in a kibbutz?" "Lend him to us and we'll see," laughed Ben-Gurion,
174
Kennedy had one other duty before de Gaulle and Khru shchev and Macmillan claimed him. He stopped that night to talk briefly at a dinner for the Eleanor Roosevelt Cancer
Foundation.
1:30 in Paris and I am due there at 10:30, and I do not believe it would be a good start to keep the general
"It
is
now
The Vice President and I waiting. So I shall be brief. are conscious always of the fact that we appropriate in Wash
.
ington from forty-five to fifty billion dollars a year in the de fense of the great Republic. And we spend a fraction of that
in the fight for cancer. If in any way it will make it possible for us to make a greater effort on this cause and no longer have to build our strength constantly, then the trip which I
am
about to make, the trip which the Vice President made a week ago, the trip which Ambassador Stevenson will make
all
next week are
worthwhile.
countries but
"We go
that
is,
to
many
we
sing the
this
same
song.
And
this
country wants peace and
country wants free

I
dom.
"Therefore in going tonight across the sea
all of
recognize that
you, as citizens of the great Republic,
come with me/'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PARIS
To
the deep night of the

its
New
IN
lantic Ocean,
sensitized scarlet nose pointed
World, up over the At toward a
Paris dawn, thundered Air Force
One 1 on May
30.
great wings flexed in the lower turbulence, clawing for the cold, smooth ribbon of 35,000 feet.
The
Behind the cabin where Col. James B. Swindal sat in the muted red glow of the instrument panel, his eyes as wakeful as the radar, the President of the United States and his wife slipped beneath the blankets in the giant planes' two bunk beds and slept. Some 4,600 miles away and three days earlier, the pudgy figure of Nikita Khrushchev had settled in a private railroad
car along with his wife, Nina.
From Moscow
the
train
chugged toward Kiev, and then it rolled on to Lvov, then to Czechoslovakia, where it halted so the Chairman could rest, and finally on to Vienna. At the stops the Soviet Premier
grinned and waved to the dutiful people who assembled at the stations. It took Khrushchev and his wife a week for the
leisurely trip.
For John and Jacqueline Kennedy there were scarcely seven hours of sleep before they were at Orly Airport, the first stride toward Vienna.
Paris was
wrapped in a
lowered
is
sunlit tissue of spring mist as the
Kennedys'
1
jet
its
wheels.
The
President pulled
up
Air Force
One
the code
name
automatically applied to the airplane in
which the President
is flying.
,-C
tie,
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
gave his hair a
last
the knot of his
brushing and put on his
coat. Press Secretary Pierre Salinger went to the forward cabin to review the plans for the arrival ceremony. Jackie
settled a pale-blue pill-box hat
on her head. Then the plane
was on European soil. French women in blue smocks gave the seventy-five yards of red carpeting a final sweeping to remove every speck of dirt. Grumpy American newsmen were herded into the
roped-off enclosure with United States embassy personnel, servicemen and school children. Eleven members of the
Garde Republicaine stood haughtily at attention, their swords point up, knee-high black boots polished like mirrors, their red plumes quivering in the breeze atop gold helmets
burnished by the soft sun. Charles de Gaulle, towering and grand, waited in a doublebreasted gray suit.
jet hiss died, the front door of the plane was thrown back, showing the seal of the President of the United States.
The
John Kennedy ducked
his head and emerged into the French morning. Jackie was a step behind, and then both of them
stood at the top of the
gave that short
choppy wave of
down
ramp to "Have you made
the
drums rolled. Kennedy and he and Jackie walked the outstretched hands of the de Gaulles.
ramp
as the
his,
a good aerial voyage?" asked de Gaulle in
his rarely used English.
When Kennedy
answered
yes,
de
Gaulle said: "Ah,
good/' contingents of American school children pressed to the fence and waved tiny American flags as de Gaulle and
that's
The
Kennedy strode toward the ornate Salon d'Honneur for the formal welcoming speeches. Kennedy was set to pass by the color guard when de Gaulle
reached out a fatherly hand and gripped his arm, pulling him back and around to face the flags and listen to the national
anthems of both nations. Jackie had been whisked around to the salon in a car, and when she entered it, two little girls in pink dresses gave her spring bouquets and she spoke her first French of the trip, "Merci bien."
in-law.
Mrs. Joseph Kennedy was there, waiting for her daughter"You look very nice, dear," she whispered.
177
Kennedy had prepared his remarks carefully, shrewdly tuning them to some of de Gaulle's own past statements. "I come from America," he said, "the daughter of Europe, to France, which is America's oldest friend. But I come today, not because of merely past ties and past friendship, but be cause the present relationship between France and the
United States is essential for the preservation of freedom around the globe." De Gaulle guided his guest to a waiting Citroen for the ten-mile motorcade to the Quai d'Orsay, where the Kennedys would stay. As Kennedy climbed into his car, a French policeman turned to American correspondents and grinned. "M on dieu, he's really an ail-American boy/'
Fifty epauletted motorcycle police and a mounted con tingent of the Garde Republicaine formed an escort for the
caravan which, in tribute to former Sorbonne student Jackie, went down the famed Boul' Mich' the cobblestoned main
street of the university district before crossing the Seine into downtown Paris. Banners of red, white and blue waved
along the
streets.
At
first
the people stood in a thin line only
one and two deep at the curbs. Then their numbers began to swell as the motorcade neared the heart of Paris. Latin Quar ter students hoisted a Harvard banner and others roared out a football-chant countdown of "Kenne-un, Kenne-deux,
Kenne-trois
.
. .
Kenne-dix."
the loi-gun salute rolled down the black caravan edged through the city. The long crowd was curious and warm, but not frenetic as crowds often
streets as the
The rumble from
had been in Kennedy's campaign in America, producing the "leapers" and "jumpers" and "runners" that had been dili
gently catalogued by the press.
The motorcade had its Kennedy touch. Dave Powers, White

House greeter and a long-time Kennedy worker, rode in one of the cars, waving and shouting "Comment-tally vous, pal," his famous from the streets of his native "Hi, adapting pal"
Charlestown, Massachusetts, for the French occasion. Near the end of the line of Citroens, Dr. Janet Travell spread her delightful smile from Orly to the Quai d'Orsay, and while she
waved she took snapshots with her camera.
-|Hg
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
in his
John Kennedy stood up

behind rode
open car
to wave,
stayed seated, occasionally gesturing to the crowd.
de Gaulle In the car
Madame de Gaulle and Jackie. There were laughs, too, in the gay confusion of such a parade. At the statue of Joan of Arc the motorcycle escort was changed for the horse-mounted contingent of the Garde Republicaine, and in the shuffle the car of newsmen which had been allowed to ride in the parade came out staring at the
massed rear ends of the horse brigade. When the sounds of the cheers, the bands and the howitz ers had died, there was no question that it had been a grand greeting. "You had more than a million out/' said de Gaulle
proudly to the President. For one Kennedy staff member there was a disturbing note. Counsel Ted Sorensen, who had been with Kennedy since
ahead of the President. It was the first trip outside the United States for Sorensen, a Lincoln, Nebraska, native. He had savored the Parisian atmosphere for two days before rushing to the airport to be on hand for
1952,
to Paris
had gone
Kennedy's
arrival.
Once
inside
the Quai
d'Orsay,
Kennedy had headed
a Louis XVI bedroom straight for "the King's Chamber" in silk and had shed his clothes and gin paneled blue-gray
gerly lowered himself into some steaming water in the huge golden tub. Immediately Sorensen knew that once again Ken
nedy had back trouble; for Sorensen had lived through the long days of the first ailment. He had watched Senator Ken nedy in pain, he had waited through the night when it was thought Kennedy's life was ebbing away following the spinal fusion operation. Sorenson had worked at the senator's bed side during the months of recuperation. He knew the signs too well to be mistaken. Nothing was said, however. Kennedy was due immediately at the Elysee Palace for the first of the formal talks and for lunch. Trumpets sounded at the Elysee, the ponderous de Gaulle came forward and again gripped Kennedy's hand. The men paused impatiently for the photographers, then de Gaulle
guided Kennedy toward his second-floor office to talk. They settled down in armchairs behind huge windows overlooking
Paris
the superbly manicured lawn. Between the chairs was a glass
holding French and American cigarettes. Neither man smoked them. Kennedy had brought his Upmann cigars, but
table,
knowing that de Gaulle did not like others to smoke in his office, Kennedy refrained. They began immediately on Berlin, with Kennedy asking questions to learn de Gaulle's views. Both men said that there could be no backdown before Soviet threats and that sei zure of West Berlin by the Russians would mean full nuclear retaliation against the Soviet Union. Kennedy wanted to
know
just
how he
could make this absolutely clear to
Khru
Kennedy was bothered by the feeling that Khru shchev was not convinced that we could not back down in Berlin. What could he say or do when he met Khrushchev in a few days? De Gaulle told Kennedy that he was certain the Russians
shchev.
did not want war.

shchev and
He
how when
reported on his own talk with Khru the Soviet Premier was expounding
about the horrors of war and his desires for peace, he (de Gaulle) had simply told Khrushchev that if he didn't want
war, then he should not start
it.
It
was up
to him, Nikita
Khrushchev.
Gaulle pointed out that we had no force in Berlin which could stop the Russians if they really wanted to seize
the city. There was only one way to defend the city and that was to be ready to unleash a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union if it used force in Berlin. Kennedy was in full agreement, but he returned to the mat ter of convincing Khrushchev of this resolve. Was de Gaulle happy with the contingency plans? Kennedy said that he was not yet satisfied. His planners were considering some kind
of probing action like sending reinforcements over the Auto bahn from West Germany to West Berlin to make certain our rights of access were not hampered and to demonstrate to the Russians we meant business. Kennedy wondered if such a move should be made with a few companies, perhaps a divi sion, or even several divisions. Perhaps there should be some
De
other action?
De
Gaulle thought
it
a good idea to reinforce Berlin
and he
OQ
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
airlift
asked about the United States

told
capability.
if
Kennedy
airlift
him he
felt
we were
in pretty
good shape
an
was
needed.
There was no
fight
if
that we question, continued Kennedy, the communists used force against us, but what
would
if
they
began nibbling away on our
rights, such as signing a peace East with Germany which, of course, we did not recog treaty Gaulle felt the answer to that was strength. There nize. De could be no sign of weakness. The Russians had been saying
for years they were going to sign such a treaty
and each time

another six
when
they faced determination they put
it
off
months, and another six months, and another six months. When they ended this first meeting to go to lunch de Gaulle and Kennedy found themselves in full agreement on the need for unflinching resolve in Berlin. It had been an auspicious start to the talks that many had feared might go awry be
cause of the unpredictable de Gaulle. For lunch there was langouste, pate de foie gras, noix de veau Orloff and three French wines, Kennedy's pop-eyed
troop of O'Donnell, Salinger, Sorensen, Powers and Ted Reardon found themselves sprinkled among an elite selection
of
officials
in
most intense
Gaulle
French government. The longest and conversation was between Jackie and de
the
in French.
off the
De
Gaulle hardly touched his lunch,
intimacy only long enough to rise and toast breaking saw "You this morning how happy Paris was to see Kennedy. I add anything to this." do need to not you. Kennedy's staff members, who were used to lunching in
White House mess, began to get the feel of the visit, and they liked it. The only one on the staff who spoke French was Pierre Salinger, and he particularly delighted in the Gal lic touch, which included the whispered observation from the woman beside him that Madame Herve Alphand's dress was the exact shade of the pale orange ice cream served for
the
dessert.
"Mrs. Kennedy and I appreciate your generosity and that of the French people," Kennedy said in his toast. "Years ago it was said that an optimist studies Russian while a pessimist
studies Chinese.
I
prefer to believe the far-seeing are learn
ing French and English."
Paris
Back in the Salon Dore there was more talk, this time about Laos. Again, there was agreement because neither Presi dent wanted to become engaged militarily in that remote country. France would diplomatically support any U.S. mili tary move in Laos, de Gaulle told Kennedy, but she would not
commit troops unless there was all-out war and then, of course, France would be at the side of the United States with
her armies.
De Gaulle
guerrilla
fight." It
told
war
of France's dismal time fighting a in that area; he called Laos "a bad place to
Kennedy
was de Gaulle's view that the best thing was to get some kind of coalition government under Souvanna Phouma
friendly countries of the area of
and to reassure the other Western support.
Kennedy asked
about
that de Gaulle not say anything publicly
his non-intervention policy agreed that silence was best. The
and de Gaulle readily Russian support of the
Pathet Lao intrigued de Gaulle,
were perhaps apprehensive could find little comfort in the Russian presence, however. The Russian-Chinese affair reminded him, he said, of Caesar and Pompey, who did not discover their dislike for each other until after they had vanquished their common enemy. The presidents went on to other subjects Africa, Portugal and the need for more consultation between Britain and France and the United States, a sore point with de Gaulle. Kennedy felt that, indeed, there was a need for closer com munication. And then again it was time for other things. Slowly but surely the spectacle of France and Paris and the handsome young couple from America became almost as im
portant as the
talks.
who suggested the Soviets about the Red Chinese. Kennedy
Kennedy met the diplomatic child-care and training center.
corps. Jackie hurried off to a
The
rain
President rode coatless through the cold afternoon up the Champs Elysee to rekindle the eternal flame be
neath the Arc de Triomphe. Thousands massed along the street, not budging when dark clouds began to dump their
moisture.
Kennedy was weary. The lines in his face showed. His back ached severely, though he had told no one, and he would rush
,go
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
back to his room for hot packs and the novocain injections which White House physician Janet Travell had used in ear lier years. Yet Kennedy did not limp or slump. Evening came, and two thousand of Paris' gilt-edged peo
a glittering ple crushed their way into the Elyse Palace for formal dinner. And then it became apparent that Jackie Ken nedy just might steal the show.
morning in the parade there had been hints. had gone up along the caravan route, "Vive Jacque line/' She was ready for Paris, it turned out well, not quite. For the reality of those first hours in Paris had gone to the very soul of Jacqueline Kennedy. She had been ushered into the Quai d'Orsay and paused for a moment amid the un packed bags and bustle and marveled to herself. She had loved Paris as a student, and she loved it now, but more. As a student she had not even dreamed of the things that had al ready happened to her. The Garde Republicaine had es corted her in the parade, white-stockinged footmen lined the stairs to the palace. She would sleep in the Chambre de la Reine, bathe in a silver mosaic tub and gaze at a ceiling
Even
that
The
cry
swarming with Napoleonic cherubs. Those who knew Mrs. Kennedy marked that day May as the day she discovered a very new and 31, 1961 very great
pleasure in being First Lady. Much of the space of two truck loads of presidential lug gage was for the array of dresses Jackie had brought with her, most of them the creations of American designer Oleg CassinL Alexandre, the leading Parisian hairdresser, stood by to serve her, as did the top cosmetician of all Europe, Nathalie,
although only once did Mrs. Kennedy avail herself of the latter's services, preferring instead her natural look. For her first night Jackie chose a narrow pink-and-white
straw-laced gown and a swooping fourteenth-century hairdo with a topknot. When she emerged from the Quai d'Orsay, there was an explosion of flash bulbs that seemed great
enough
seams, too.
to illuminate all of Paris. French praise split its "Charmante, ravissante," exclaimed the French
newsmen. And even John Kennedy was impressed. "Well," he said, *Tm dazzled/' For he, too, had made a discovery on
May 31
his wife.
Paris
jgo v/
after shaking a thousand hands, Jackie's and she was visibly weary. But her smile stained was glove was back Her straight and she moved in gliding grace. stayed. that America had not noticed about her. This was something Her bearing was a vital part of her beauty. As the French
That evening,
women
est
watched, they
murmured among
les
themselves, "Elle
is
plus reine que toutes than all the queens.
reines"
she
more queenly
eyed
ted
The ultimate compliment went almost unnoticed. A sharpmember of the American party who knew French spot
it
in a
French newspaper.
teen-agers,
and
it
said that
was a column of advice to young ladies who wanted to be

It
beautiful should practice sitting and standing gracefully, then they should go out into the street and look at Mrs. Ken
nedy.
The
trouble that was to

subject of
detail
second day in Paris Kennedy got a full preview of the come from Charles de Gaulle. When the
NATO
back and told
came up on the agenda de Gaulle settled the President that he wanted to talk in some
And, indeed, he did. sketched for Kennedy the history of France after the war. In the first postwar years she was a nation of no
this matter.
about
De Gaulle
ambition, the French President pointed out. She had had too much war and did not want power, and it was only natural
United States should step into that vacuum in Eu now France had regained her health and she again But rope. had ambition, he said. There was a genuine French spirit and the country could not live under the shadow of NATO much longer; she must have her own nuclear force and she
that the
intended to develop
generals,
it.
De
NATO was the reason
that he
Gaulle did not say outright that had so much trouble with his
but he suggested that constantly being under a "su pranational" power caused discontent among them. De Gaulle declared that he would not do anything right then and that
he understood the importance of Kennedy's mission to Vienna and the need not to hurt NATO, but that some time in the near future the situation would have to change.
listened quietly as de Gaulle talked. The de Gaulle theory of an individual nuclear force was not, of
Kennedy
course,
what Kennedy wanted. The United
States possessed
..
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
for the free world. It was the feel
enough nuclear protection
ing of the United States that the cause of freedom would be better served if the European countries built up their con
ventional forces to assume
more
of their share of the
NATO
responsibilities in Europe. Further, the proliferation of nu clear capability was fraught with grave possibilities for the
future of civilization, and the United States was against it. De Gaulle talked on. The United States could not always
be depended upon to defend Europe. And there were the questions of where and how nuclear weapons would be used should fighting break out in Europe. De Gaulle could visual ize both Russia and the United States exploding their war heads against opposing forces on European land and thus,
destroying Europe, both the major powers would per be unharmed if fighting then stopped. In de Gaulle's haps vision, France had to have nuclear power of her own. Kennedy could not agree, and he said so. America would there was no question about that, there fight for Europe were no conceivable conditions under which this country would turn away. Why would de Gaulle's national nuclear
r
w hile
force really solve the problem of when and how to go to war, Kennedy wondered. Couldn't there be the same problems be
tween France and Germany that de Gaulle suggested might arise between the United States and France? De Gaulle's an swer was that the Rhine was not as wide as the Atlantic and there would be much concern for a neighboring country like
Germany.
De
Gaulle brought in the
"first strike"
theory to support
his argument. The common assumption has been that the United States would not start a war; thus Russia in a nuclear
conflict
would get
off
the
first
missile strike,
which might
States
destroy as
much of Europe as of the United States. Kennedy disagreed politely again. The United
might very well strike the first blow in a nuclear war, he said. If it was necessary, if our forces were in danger, if we knew the Soviet Union was preparing to strike, if Europe were at tacked, the United States would not hesitate to act first.
Kennedy repeated
had troops
that
clear reaction, the United States.
Europe was, for all purposes of nu That was the reason we still
there, the President continued.
"We
will
go
to
Paris
war if Europe is attacked/* he said again. To hear Kennedy say this, de Gaulle replied, had con vinced him that Kennedy meant it, but he still wanted his
own
nuclear power.
if
Kennedy asked
there was anything that

it
the French President to think about
NATO nuclear submarine force
totally
might persuade again. What about a under de Gaulle and

r
Macmillan, asked Kennedy. Such an idea w ould certainly get consideration from him, de Gaulle said. The long discussion wound down, and though the tone was still cordial, the dis agreement was still basic.
Disagreement or not in the business talks, the French Presi dent by the second day was calling Kennedy mon ami and T Kennedy w as smiling even more despite his backache. He
broke away from security
Champs
men twice and politicked along the for outstretched hands and repeat reaching Elysee,
Good
1
ing his good-humored, "How are you? as if he were in Pocatello or Madison.
to see
you/ just
500 U.S. embassy employees he joked, "I tried to be assigned to the embassy in Paris myself, and, unable to do so, I decided I would run for President." At the Hotel de Ville,
Paris' gilded city hall, he brought up his ancestry. "I am the descendant on both sides of two grandparents who served in the city council of Boston, and I am sure they regarded that as a more significant service than any of their descendants
To
have yet rendered/'

as
But as fast as Kennedy moved around the city, as pleasing he was to the crowds, he could not compete with Jackie's
splendor. In the tow of

Paris.
Madame de Gaulle, Jackie bounded through Behind her in a Citroen came Rose Kennedy, Jackie's sister Lee Radziwill, and her sister-in-law Eunice Shriver. French Minister of Culture Andr Malraux, w ho had helped
r
whisked her past the collection of impressionist minutes. paintings in the Jeu de Paume Museum in forty-five "I have just seen the most beautiful paintings in the w orld/' the presi gasped Jackie. She received a tiny wrist watch from dent of the Paris Municipal Council. She journeyed to Malplan her
stay,
r
maison, the Empress Josephine's country retreat, and ate a gourmet lunch at La Celle St. Cloud, the long-ago hideaway
85
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
of Mrae. de Pompadour. Always, wherever she went, the French wanted to see her. They stood on the curbs and stared. Their reaction was two
fold; first they
exclaimed over her beauty, then they turned
to each other
$ais"
and shrugged. "Parce quelle a du sang franwhat do you expect, she's French. Indeed, it seemed
if
at times as
she were one of them.
the second day, late in the afternoon, she walked out of the Quai d'Orsay with only a Secret Service man. She climbed into a Citroen completely unnoticed, and for
forty-
On
minutes she was driven through the traffic-clogged streets of Paris as evening came on. For the first time since arriving she was unrecognized. She stared out at the people and the
five
buildings and the monuments. When she met her staff after the drive, she was bubbling with delight. "We spent fortyfive minutes in a traffic jam on Place de I'Alma," she laughed.
It
had been
wonderful break from her
official duties.
Nothing rivaled the magnificence of the second night, xvhen in a misty Paris dusk the Kennedys and the de Gaulles
drove the eleven miles to the Palace of Versailles for the most
evening the Kennedys had experienced since be first couple of the land. For the occasion Jackie had broken her all-American-wardrobe rule and put on a bell-skirted dress by French designer Hubert de Givenchy. It was the supreme tribute to France.
brilliant
coming the
In the cavernous Hall of Mirrors, 150 guests dined by can on coeur de filet de Charolais dlelight Renaissance from the gold-trimmed china given to Napoleon the of Paris as
by
city
a coronation present. Then the elegant party idled through the endless halls to the far wing and the theater for a gold-and-aqua Louis
XV
command
If
ballet performance.
there was a climax to this spectacular visit, it came as young American couple stood smiling and erect with the de Gaulles in the theater and received the tribute of the
the
select
audience below and around them.
sailles.
The mist still clung, giving the vast cobblestoned court the yards mystery and romance that they had held for the
After the performance the Kennedys with their hosts motored the slowly through grounds and the gardens of Ver
Paris
g^
Huge spotlights bathed the buildings in diffused beams. The fountains glowed and sparkled, the shadows of the statues reaching into the black
French rulers
lived there.
who once
and conjuring up the heritage of grandeur. Twice the Ken

nedys stopped to gaze on this haunting scene. And the last time the President took the arm of his wife as they walked
damp lawn, silent, deeply moved. De Gaulle joined the two presidents solemnly shook hands and said and them, good night.
over the
While France
in
its
own way
kindled the Kennedy
spirits,
there was an event taking place in the Caribbean and in Wash ington which, though of a far grimmer nature, would also
hearten Kennedy
the
crisis.
when he saw how
his
government handled
In the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo
was machine-gunned to a grotesque death. first unconfirmed reports were flashed to Washington and on to Paris. Press Secretary Pierre Salinger casually men tioned the news to reporters in the lobby of the Crillon Hotel, thinking it was even then spreading around the world; but it was the first break in the story. Newsmen hurried away
The
with the Salinger fragment before Salinger suddenly realized that the story was not yet confirmed. He spent a nervous eve
ning waiting for more reports, fearing that, if he were wrong, such a grievous mistake might cost him his job. But he was
not wrong, and the confirmation of the assassination was soon
cabled to the President.
In the meantime Washington had swung into motion. Only a few days before, a contingency plan for anticipated trouble in the seething Dominican Republic had been com
pleted. It included the possibility of Trujillo's assassination. In the seventh-floor conference room of the State Depart
ment, the meetings began under Secretary of State Dean Rusk, scheduled to depart within hours to join Kennedy in Paris. Secretary of Defense McNamara and Vice President
Johnson hurried to Foggy Bottom. Allen Dulles was there, and so was Bob Kennedy. The great fear was that the com munists would seize the Dominican government. There were misgivings that the contingency plan was not strong enough
QQ
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
with a revolution. But the revolution did not come.
to deal
Jr., the dead dictator's gs-year-old flew home take to playboy son, charge and proved more sensi ble than had been expected. The communists and Castroites
Rafael Leonidas Trujillo,
were stalled. Cautiously the United States contingency plan was instrumented. A United States fleet of warships, loaded
with battle-ready Marines, churned sixty miles off the Do minican Republic's coast. The new ruler was told bluntly that terror tactics to avenge his father's death would bring the
leathernecks down the streets of Ciudad Trujillo. The pres sure was so intense that Trujillo even agreed to let the Or ganization of American States send in a four-nation team of
investigators to see how he was doing. The situation stabi lized, some of the tension subsided. Dean Rusk flew off to
and Bob Kennedy went back to his office in the Justice Department. It had been a win for John Kennedy, cheering news for the man who was on the final lap of Paris, readying
Paris,
for Vienna.
The Kennedys' last day in Paris was a gray one. But the President was feeling happy about the rapport that had been established between himself and the French leader. For
two more hours he met with de Gaulle, then he faced news men in an impromptu conference.
In the Palais de Chaillot, he admitted total surrender to Jackie. "1 do not think it altogether inappropriate to in troduce myself to this audience/' he began. "I am the man
Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it." His statement was far more meaningful than even the news
the great public spectacle could im was in the most private moments that perhaps Jackie Kennedy had been best. Often she had found herself alone between de Gaulle and her husband, and she had been
agine. For
it
who accompanied
men who had watched
the interpreter, bringing an intimacy that perhaps had never been introduced before into such high-level talk. In these
moments de Gaulle often just gazed at her, obviously enjoy ing looking at this American woman. Sometimes Jackie found
herself alone with the
moments
to talk
French President, and she took these about what she wanted. The two of them at
Paris
gg
the Versailles theater discussed French literature and thea Gaulle's ter, subjects they both enjoy. No greater proof of de
letter he wrote captivation could be had than the long-hand to her when she was back in America.
There was a last meeting with de Gaulle, just to firm up and seal the areas of understanding. And finally it was 4:30 in the afternoon of June 2, and the next day Kennedy was to meet with Khrushchev. Paris had been three days of high drama, beauty and deep feeling, all characteristic of France. Vienna held other promise. De Gaulle and Kennedy stood together for the last time and de Gaulle, with true feeling, thanked Kennedy for his frankness, for the excellent spirit of the talks and for the at mosphere maintained throughout the three days. Before they parted, the young President turned to the man who had endured in the volatile French political system like a piece of marble statuary. He asked, "You've studied being head of a country for fifty years. Have you found out anything I should know?" The French President promised to speak of that an other day when he had more time. The Garde Republicaine were back on the patio of the Elyse Palace. Trumpeters stood on the lawn. Jackie drove up and hurried in to join her husband in the formal farewells.
white-gloved attendant slipped out a side door, carefully carrying the Kennedy gray fedora which the President had dutifully brought with him but had not put on his head once.
The footman brushed
it
up
a bit with his sleeve, laid
it
gin
gerly on the seat in Kennedy's waiting car. The trumpets blared. Kennedy and de Gaulle
came out
and
listened again in rigid silence to the national the two nations.
anthems of
have more confidence in your country," said de Gaulle, wringing Kennedy's hand. The two men smiled. Charles de Gaulle strode back into the Elysê, and the short
I
"Now
caravan of black Citroens
moved off down the gravel path. with his French visit, Kennedy finished Though formally would spend the night in the Quai d'Orsay. But first he sped to the American embassy, where he met with his top men.
Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson had flown in from Moscow. Chip Bohlen, after giving the American newsmen a back-
igo
ground briefing on the meaning o the de Gaulle talks, turned to Russian matters. Foy Kohler, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, was there as well, and Secretary of State Rusk had rushed in from the United States. White House Aides McGeorge Bundy and Ted Sorensen also were dinner table. This was the last part of the skull session at the chance Kennedy had to prepare. In Vienna the next morning
he would
face
Khrushchev.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
VIENNA
KHRUSHCHEV
arrived in
Vienna the
NIK.ITA
Molotov,
day before Kennedy. Immediately he xvas involved in a curious little drama that pointed up the weird
at the train station in
ways of the communist world. Waiting

a crowd of Soviet
who
children was Vyacheslav M. four years before had been kicked out of the
<4
women and
must get together," said Khrushchev, reaching out to shake Molotov's hand. So viet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who had once been
Molotov's deputy, gave a we're having."
stiff
Communist party by Khrushchev.
We
smile, said,
"Nice weather
encounter helped to underscore what American So viet experts had been telling Kennedy: Khrushchev had his
problems, too.
The
The persistent criticism from Red China's Mao Tse-tung for being too soft on the free world continued.
Albania's Enver Hoxha, a Stalinist dictator, fired off barb after barb toward Moscow. Russian agriculture was in more
for
mounting all across the Soviet Union more and better consumer goods. As in other matters, Kennedy had been well briefed on the Russian difficulties, and now the time had come to apply all
trouble. Pressure was
r
this
cramming. "For Khrushchev we had sun. For Kennedy w e have rain," shrugged a bus driver as early on Saturday morning, June 3, 1961, he nudged through the traffic to the Vienna airport.
Light rain
fell
continuously,
making
the
swarms of Austrian
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
policemen huddle inside their gray slickers. Reporters, who had been billeted in army barracks and routed out with a bugle call followed by a brass band in the courtyard of the army post, now massed damply on the land
ing apron.
The Vienna-American
American
contingent was there in force. In
style, they had hoisted placards above the fence. "Give 'em Hell, Jack," read one. Another said, "Help Berlin/'
Others: "Lift the Iron Curtain"; 'Innocents
Abroad Say
John Kennedy nibbled at a roll and huddled with his advisers on the he sipped orange Soviet during the brief flight from Paris to Vienna. He was out of the plane door with a wave. Jackie one step behind him. She was stunning in one of Cassini's creations, this one a brilliant aqua. But the interest here was not in fashion. The glowering clouds over the city only tended to heighten the tension that had been building since the day before, when Khrushchev had arrived. Kennedy was gratified at the sight of the Austrians who
his jet plane
Howdy." Aboard
juice as
lined the fifteen-mile motorcade route from Schwechat to
Alte Hofburg, the residence of Austrian President Dr. Adolf Scharf. Police estimated that there were 70,000 along
the way, standing and waving despite the rain. In the sunny weather of the day before, Khrushchev had drawn but 50,000.
Kennedy and his contingent disappeared behind the high barbed-wire fence surrounding the residence of Ambassador H. Freeman Matthews.
The
as
President paced the halls restlessly, talking with aides he waited for the first encounter with Khrushchev.
Even the surroundings had a somber look. The boxy gray

stucco residence with an ugly tan stone trim was a totally un appealing building. Around the barbed wire paced Austrian
guards with huge police dogs that wore wire-mesh muzzles. The clouds persisted and a chill wind rushed through the pines. Now and then rain splattered the gravel drive.
to the steps.
car,
Precisely at 12:45 a four-door black Chaika crunched up Khrushchev thrust his stubby legs out of the
took a couple of short strides. Kennedy, at last face to face with his adversary, bounded out of the hall and rushed down
193
the few steps. He smiled, leaned over and thrust his hand out "How are you?" he asked. "I'm glad to see you." Khrushchev looked up only for a second, smiled and then
tried to move up the steps. He looked fit and was dressed in a neat gray suit that was only a shade lighter than the gray Kennedy wore. On his left chest were two medals,
star-shaped
Lenin Peace Medals. Like Kennedy, he was hatless. The two men struggled up the stairs. Photographers scram bled desperately for pictures. They shouted, cursed and pleaded. "Another handshake," they cried. Kennedy turned
to the interpreter. "Say to the
Chairman
that
it is all
right to
shake hands
if it is all
right with him." Khrushchev beamed
and stuck out a pudgy hand for the pose. Kennedy fixed a slight smile on his face, but instead of turning toward the cameras, he stepped back a pace and turned toward Khru
shchev.
Then
for a few seconds
Kennedy bluntly surveyed
thrust his hands into his coat pockets and continued to stare. Soviet Ambassador Mi khail Menshikov stepped on Dean Rusk's foot in the scram ble on the small concrete porch and blurted out his apology.
the Russian from head to toe.
He
they turned and went inside, the reporters noting Khrushchev came about nose high on Kennedy. As they walked toward the residence's red-and-gray music room where the talks were to start, Kennedy presented U.S. Ambassador Llewlyn Thompson as "our ambassador to Mos
that
Then
cow."
Khrushchev shot Kennedy a mischievous glance and replied about Thompson, whom he had come to like during Thomp
son's long service: "He's
our ambassador."
in a circle of chairs,
In the music
room they settled

left,
Kennedy
and opened their talks with some pleas antries of past association. Kennedy recalled that he had met the Russian leader back in 1959 when, during his tour of the United States, Khrushchev had stopped by the Senate For eign Relations Committee. "I'm glad to see you again," said
Kennedy.
Indeed, Khrushchev said, he remembered that meeting. Further, he had some time ago taken note of the up-andcoming politician named John Kennedy. He was a young
on Khrushchev's
man, continued Khrushchev, applying a
little
flattery,
to
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
have such great burdens of office. Then they began their long, sometimes bitter, verbal strug gle that was to last through eleven hours, two lunches and a
lonely walk by the two
men and
their interpreters through
blooming mock-orange in a spring-freshened woods. Reporters and the curious Viennese crowded outside the gates of both the U.S. embassy residence and the Soviet em
bassy as the talks changed locale. There was a break on Saturday night for a huge state din ner in the Schonbrunn Palace. Khrushchev edged his chair closer to Jackie, seemed smitten w ith her as de Gaulle had
r
been
as,
with eyes twinkling, he told her funny

St.
stories.
On
Sunday morning the Kennedys
listened to the
Vienna
Stephen's Cathedral; at the same time Khrushchev solemnly laid a wreath of red carnations at the base of the Russian war memorial in Schwarzenbergplatz.
Boys' Choir in the huge
But the interludes were only fleeting. The grim business of discussing the future of the world held the focus of the two men who could alter it in seconds.
Kennedy sized up the man beside him in the first minutes. was no buffoon. There would be none of the shoe-waving antics remembered from the incredible Khrushchev visit to
He
the United Nations in 1960. Though the truncated frame of the Premier was it seemed to move with animal
agility.
The
and
sleeve,
less
roly-poly, eyes darted and pierced, pride was Kennedy made certain not to offend
trivialities.
worn on
his
remarks about
by any care His adversary was immensely
well informed.
Khrushchev was quick to quote back to Kennedy excerpts from the speech he had made the week before to Congress in which he cited the Soviet threat and asked for more
money
improve United States ability in guerrilla fighting. your speeches," he admitted. He declared that Kennedy had reversed an order to send U.S. Marines
to
"I've read all
into Laos. And when the President responded that he had done no such thing, Khrushchev shot him an unbelieving look and said he had read it in the American press.
Khrushchev's knowledge of history was broad and deep. At one point, as they talked about of the world letting peoples have the right of self-determination, Khrushchev noted that
Vienna
Western powers had interfered in Russia's revolution and had considered the United States a and revolutionary nation, much as the United dangerous viewed Russia. now States
also that Tsarist Russia
Within the
stilted
philosophy of communism, Khrushchev

points,
it
could advance
telling
After sixteen years, did
not
make
present logical arguments. sense to have a German
peace treaty?
mainland?
Was not Formosa really a part of the Chinese And after all, the United States was supporting a
r
good many undemocratic governments around the w orld what about Franco? These were the Khrushchev thrusts. Never was the Premier completely cowed or backed into a corner. When he w as caught, he simply did not answer. "We admit our mistakes," said Kennedy once. "Do you ever admit you are wrong?"
r
"Oh, yes," said Khrushchev. "In the speech before the Twentieth Party Congress I admitted Stalin's mistakes." "Those weren't your mistakes," shot back Kennedy. The
Russian changed the subject. It was rarely, however, that the Premier trailed
silence.
off into
He usually had a last crack.

talks
went on, Kennedy brought up two Chinese say he ings. First, quoted Red Chinese boss Mao Tse-tung as saying that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Khrushchev remonstrated. He had never heard Mao utter this saying, and he did not think Kennedy had heard it either. In fact, he could not believe that the peace-loving communist had used those words. As the
in talking about the nuclear-test meeting as a and needed step toward peace, Kennedy said, "The jour ney of a thousand miles begins with one step." Khrushchev gave Kennedy a quizzical look, then he grinned. "You seem to know the Chinese very well," he said. "We may both get to know them better," answered Ken
first
r
A little later,
nedy.
"I know them well enough now," concluded Khrushchev. Sometimes they bantered good-naturedly about their sys tems of government, telling political jokes on themselves. Khrushchev often talked in fables. When Kennedy drove up to the Russian embassy on the second day, Khrushchev
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
you on a small piece of our Soviet Sometimes we drink out of a small glass, but we
this."
said to his guest, "I greet

territory.
speak with great feeling." Answered Kennedy, "I'm glad to hear
Touching one of the two star-shaped medals on Khrushchev's chest, Kennedy asked what they were for. Khrushchev replied that they were Lenin Peace Medals. "I hope you keep them," said Kennedy with a
wit was in evidence.
The Kennedy
chuckle.
Kennedy noted that Khrushchev's knowledge of agricul ture was particularly deep. But there wr ere times when he had to ask about the technical details of nuclear testing. At
all
ority.
times the Soviet leader wore that brittle veneer of superi Kennedy sensed that Khrushchev liked the talk, liked
the challenge of argument. He was agreeable much of the time. Only toward the end and only when the talk turned to the grim issue of the moment Berlin did Khrushchev raise his voice. When the arguments had run their course and
capitalism and
communism ended in head-on opposition, Khrushchev became hard. At other times he liked to leaven his converation with humor. Once as the President lighted a cigar, he waved the match to put out the flame and it slipped from his grip to land be hind Khrushchev's chair. Spotting the burning match, Khru shchev asked, "Are you trying to set me on fire?" Kennedy as sured him he was not. "Ah/' laughed the Soviet Premier, "a capitalist, not an incendiary." These talks were not dominated by Khrushchev, as so often had been the case in the past with Americans. The time was divided. And Kennedy was in good form, blunt and frank and as well informed on each issue as was the Russian. When Khrushchev complained that he had not been in vited to sign the Japanese peace treaty in 1951, Kennedy was ready. He had read the same complaints in the transcripts of the earlier Khrushchev-Eisenhower talks, and Kennedy re minded him that this was an old issue which had been brought up before. The subject was dropped. Khrushchev told Kennedy that Franklin Roosevelt back in 1944 had planned to withdraw forces from Germany in three or four years. The President remembered the old documents
Vienna
1Q7
based that state
and rattled off the fact that Roosevelt had ment on the assumption of a united Germany. Again Khru shchev had no answer. "You're an old country, we're a young country/ jibed the
1
Premier.
"If you'll look across the table, you'll see that we're
old,"
not so
came back Kennedy.

the former Georgia farm
boy Dean Rusk mentioned had that this country developed a dwarf corn that could mature in a short time, Khrushchev shook his head in disbe lief and declared that no less an authority than his old friend, Iowa's Roswell (Bob) Garst, had assured him it could not
When
be grown in great amounts. Rusk persisted, offering to send Khrushchev some of the dwarf corn. But Khrushchev was not
really interested in w hether or corn. He insisted that our great
r
not w e had developed better

r
amounts of
fertilizer
and
ma
chines had put us ahead. would bury us in corn, too.
Once Russia got
these aids, she
Kennedy did not forget the corn conversation. When at lunch Khrushchev downed an American martini (Kennedy that Russia had developed a way sipped Dubonnet), he said to make vodka from natural gas. Hearing this, Kennedy corn to me." laughed. "That sounds like more of Dean Rusk's
that the played a central theme. Kennedy's was destruction of civilization as we know it could stem from mis
Each
man
calculation
sive nations
and
that
it
would be
total folly for the
two mas
hold most of the world's power to become involved in a dangerous wrangle over such tiny pieces of
who
land as Laos and Berlin.

tion
and wars, showed how countries had carelessly wandered down a pathway that they never dreamed could open into swift and bloody conflict. Khrushchev did not disagree. In fact, he endorsed the be lief that nuclear war would destroy that which both nations
of gov sought and that it would not vindicate either system the side on was of tide the ernment. But, he insisted, history
of the communists. It was inevitable that
cited the history of miscalcula misunderstanding that had led up to the last three
He
communism would
kinds of sweep over the face of the globe. There were three war, he said nuclear war, conventional war and war of rev-
1/\Q
olution.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
The first two kinds of war were unlikely in the but the internal wars of revolution "holy ahead; years them -would go on. For the United States to he called wars,"
oppose them was to oppose the will of the people. Kennedy wryly noted that what Khrushchev had said rep resented a turn in communist philosophy which nuclear weap
ons had brought about. Khrushchev did not dissent.
When
the
first
day's meetings
Pierre Salinger and his mov, hurried back to the Hofburg Palace to brief the press. It turned into one of the biggest briefings in history, w ith 1,500 correspondents and photographers jammed into the huge marble ballroom of the palace. So vast was this arena that each man was furnished with his own tiny transistor radio with ear plugs, through which the press secretaries broadcast. There was a brief flurry when Kharlamov de
r
were over, Press Secretary Russian counterpart, Mikhail Kharla-
scribed the day's talks as "fruitful." The official joint release had used the words "frank and courteous." Was there dis
agreement, Salinger was asked. Wary and cautious, Salinger held firm. "I think I will stand with the statement I made at
meant there had been no

deals.
the outset." This was the hint that the ne\vsmen sought. It concessions, no agreements, no
r
For Kennedy it was the "hardest work in the w orld." Every energy w as focused on listening and talking. Khru shchev took little interest in the issues of Cuba and Laos. He did not throw up the Cuban invasion fiasco to the President, but he declared that the United States had made Fidel Castro a good communist. The neutrality of Laos was what the Rus sians desired too, said Khrushchev. Kennedy sometimes saw that Khrushchev's understanding of the United States was sorely limited. Khrushchev men tioned the group of fifty top industrialists wiiom Averell Harriman had rounded up for Khrushchev to see w hen he was in the United States. These men, the monopolists, said Khru
T
shchev, controlled Kennedy. When the President insisted that none of them had supported him in the election, Khru
shchev was unbelieving and confused. "They are clever lows," he said, and changed the subject.
fel
Once, as Khrushchev pressed Kennedy about our support
Vienna
gg
of undemocratic governments, Kennedy reminded the Pre mier of his satellite nations. What about Poland, he asked.
He
was not at
if
all sure that
the people
would choose com
given an honest chance to express their will. The Soviet leader bristled, declared that Kennedy had his nerve. "Poland has a fine government, more democratic than the
munism
States/' he charged. "Its election laws are more honest in the United States. You recognize Poland." those than
United
after hour and point after point passed, Kennedy a great unsettled feeling. Never before when to get began he had sat down to talk with men who disagreed with him
As hour
had he found, when human suffering or great tragedy might result from the differences, that they would be totally un bending. Always under such circumstances there had been some admission that needless injury to others should be avoided, that both should give in somewhat. But now Ken nedy could find no "area of accommodation." When Ken nedy talked with Khrushchev of the tragedy of killing mil lions of people in both countries in a matter of minutes should either nation misjudge the other, and that therefore perhaps both men should soften a little in their positions, he found the Russian to be unmoved. Khrushchev would admit the disaster of nuclear war but would not admit that conces sions, no matter how slight, xvere a way to avoid it. Kennedy had learned what he hoped that he would not learn, that the enemy was more unbending than he had im agined, even after the lessons of Laos and Cuba. Item by
item Kennedy had been shown the steely constitution of com munism since the day he took office. This was the latest. His
delicate
desire for establishing some communications in that there was some area of compromise that the two hopes nations might find to ease the world tension was suffering
another and almost shattering blow.

Soviet premier explained that he intended to sign a peace treaty with East Germany; after that, the West could deal with East Germany on access to Berlin and the right to
station troops there. in Berlin legally and
The
Kennedy answered that the West was would use force to maintain its rights
there "at any risk/'
Khrushchev admitted that he was under pressure to resume
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
nuclear testing.
He said
that
he had heard that Kennedy was
bragged that the Soviet Union to resume testing, as it States United would probably would do soon. Then, when the United States
being urged
to test also.
He
wait for the
tested, the Russians
w ould
r
follow.
the meetings drew to a close over lunch at the Soviet embassy, the somber feeling had spread through the ranks of
As
the
staffs.
The subject was Berlin, and
the talk was dark.

toast, left
Khrushchev stood up and, in a champagne
no
doubts in anybody's mind about his intent to press on with the Soviet cause in the same manner as he had been doing.
Kennedy stood to respond. He had brought to Khrushchev a gift of a model of the famous old fighting ship the "Constitu tion." The model now sat in the middle of the table. He had come to Vienna, Kennedy said, to make every effort to pre vent a war that would destroy both Russia and the United States. He noted that western Europe had been the previous battle ground and had always managed to recover from the conflicts. Then he gestured toward the model of "Old Iron sides" on the table. Its guns had carried only half a mile, he said. In those days it had been possible for nations to recover from wars in a matter of months or years as, indeed west ern Europe had done after World War II. But now, in the age of nuclear weapons, a war would leave its effects on gen erations of men. Such a war should not be allowed to hap
pen.
Kennedy was scheduled to leave then, but he did not want to go. He wanted one more chance to talk to Khrushchev. "No," he barked to his staff. "We're not going on time. I'm
not going to leave until I The words between
know more."
Khrushchev and Kennedy grew Khrushchev growled that his decision to sign a stronger. with East Germany by December was "firm," peace treaty was absolutely "irrevocable."
Kennedy looked
that
is
at the Russian,
"it is
both
men
unsmiling. "If
be a cold winter." going The meetings had ended. At 4:35 P.M. on June 4, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev came down the stairs and out the front door of the Russian embassy. They had not spoken as they walked. The frigid effect of their final words
true,"
he said,
to
Vienna
clung to them. Kennedy thrust his hands into his pockets. On the steps the two men paused for photographs. They forced a final smile and handshake. The President hurried
into his bubble-top Lincoln. Dean Khrushchev, now on the steps, was
Rusk
slid in beside
him.
grinning, his old self.
Ken
nedy's smile was strained. As the car moved slowly out into the street, Kennedy and Rusk stared ahead and did not speak.
The
seat,
President threw his
left
arm up along
the back of his
the fingers of his left hand drummed frantically ledge beneath the rear window. Then he was
on the
gone.
HA
TER FI F TEEN
LONDON AND HOME
E world
still
TH
as it
waited for the deeper meaning of the
talks. The language of the offi statement following the meetings was as obscure was meant to be. "President Kennedy and Premier
Kennedy-Khrushchev
cial
Khrushchev have concluded two days of useful meetings, during which they have reviewed the relationships between the U.S. and the USSR, as well as other questions that are of interest to the two States. ." Chip Bohlen, sitting on the edge of a desk swinging his leg nervously, had briefed American correspondents and had been more frank, cautioning the newsmen to refrain from any optimistic speculation over what might result. Yet the air of uncertainty w as not cleared. What had been said, what had been felt by John Kennedy in those long hours with Khrushchev? The first hint of the discouragement came as Kennedy's jet sped toward London. The President talked briefly with the pool of newsmen who were flying with him, and the dim
.
.
presidential
mood was immediately detectable.
Kennedy was tired and unusually silent. He sat down with the reporters and muttered, "It's been a tough four days. Seeing Macmillan will be easy after this." Twice he
stared
at his shoes and shook Khrushchev had been. bending
down
his
head and said
how un
staffers came other hints. "He [Khru was a tough S.O.B.," said one. "He wouldn't give on shchev]
From White House
London and Home

anything.'* "Don't build any castles," warned another. The stories filed that night said that the Soviet Premier had cast
a spell of gloom over the Americans.
Kennedy's stop in London was brief. He reported to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, dined with the Queen and again was airborne over the Atlantic, this time headed for Labrador,
where he would rest before flying on to Washington. As he came up the ramp to his plane in London, he was the same smiling young man that he had been when he had left America. He was in his tuxedo from the Buckingham
His men Rusk, Bundy, Sorensen, Nitze, had hurried onto the plane before him. "Are you comparing castles?" Kennedy had kidded these officials as he walked by them to his cabin. The grin w as there, the old bounce seemed intact. But this appearance was misleading. His back throbbed. Inside he carried the cold weight of Khrushchev's gloom, and he could not sleep, even though it was near midnight w hen he had boarded. He sat surrounded by staff and with his sister Eunice
Palace dinner.
Kohler
Shriver. Jackie had stayed in London with her sister, to go from there to Greece for a vacation.
Dean Rusk clung
loosely to the baggage rack beside
Ken
nedy as the two weighed the talks. hot soup and thumbed through the latest newspapers. Then he wanted to know from friends what America would think about it all, what w as going to be written during the week, the week after Vienna. Sometimes the figure of the President of the United States can seem lost in the vastness of his job. Sometimes the trap
r
The President had some
the big cars, the pings of the position the huge airplanes, the seem to overwhelm staff of single man. To those army
who
watch, the reality of such moments President becomes human. He becomes a
is
disturbing.
as other
The
man
men,
with a body that
suffers
with a pain and fatigue and
mind
that grows wêary of the hopeless and complex problems of the nuclear age. Fortunately these are fleeting moments. This nation cannot afford to have a mere human in a super
human job.
But the
early hours of
June 6 represented one of those
o QA
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
times of disquieting realism. thinned. I talked to him.
The
presidential aura
had
The
as
whine of jet power pierced the cabin walls Air Force One plunged on through the blue-black night of
persistent
sat in his shorts in
the Atlantic Ocean.
John Kennedy
litter of
the
dim plane
light.
The
newspapers was around him. His eyes were red and dark watery, pockets beneath them. He shifted stiffly in his seat to ease the back pain, occasionally reached to touch the
spot that ached, as if such action might dispel it. For a few seconds he turned to me. How had
I
been, was
the trip good, had

questions.
Then he
gotten to see some of Europe? wanted to know what had been written,
Human
to the
what would be
journalists?
written, did the trip
seem a success
He was pleased that the account of the meetings with Khrushchev had not once gotten out of hand. There was no euphoria from this voyage to lie later in fragments, as had the spirit of Geneva and the spirit of Camp David. He would talk to the American people in a special report in the coming w eek, said Kennedy. And he would be honest about it all. He wondered out loud what would follow in Berlin. The President clutched his bare knees and in silence looked out the plane's window. His mind snapped back to his confronta tion with Nikita Khrushchev. He frowned. "It was invalua ble, it was invaluable," he said, half to himself. Ahead lay some serious days for the United States. About this there could be no question. But Kennedy could now work in that cool atmosphere of reality that he preferred. He had heard with his own ears, seen with his own eyes. Yes, the future was grim, he thought, but not hopeless. The news would, indeed, continue to get worse for some time more be fore it would get better. Yet the President could see a clearer
r
way ahead.
Though
their ears,
the warnings of Khrushchev were still ringing in though the memory of Cuba had not faded,
though the mystery of Laos still persisted and though the President of the United States was now hampered by pain, the confidence of the New Frontier in itself was rekindling.
London and Home

If there
4UF)
orK
came a
single time
when
it
could be said that the

effectiveness in
line
graph of the
Kennedy administration
foreign affairs broke from the nadir of Cuba and began to climb, these hours of June 6, 1961, were that time. The line representing public confidence on this imaginary chart lagged
fact, it may have continued to Russian threats in Berlin materialized later. plunge But it, too, would have its moments of upturn.
it
behind, as
always does. In
as the
Back in the United States, Kennedy moved quickly. That evening he reported to the people from his office. "I went to Vienna to meet the leader of the Soviet Union, Mr. Khru
shchev.
days.
.
.
... I w ill tell you now that it was a very sober two But I found this meeting with Chairman Khru
r
.
somber as it was, to be immensely useful. We have wholly different views of right and wrong, of what is an internal affair and what is aggression, and, above all, we have wholly different concepts of where the world is going
shchev, as
.
.
. .
The one
area which afforded some immediate prospect
of accord was Laos. Both sides recognized the need to reduce the dangers in that situation. Both sides endorsed the con
No such hope cept of a neutral and independent Laos. emerged, however, with respect to the other deadlocked Ge
.
neva conference, seeking a treaty to ban nuclear tests. . This battle goes on, and we have to play our part in it. ... We must be patient. We must be determined. We must be
. .
must accept both risks and burdens, but with courageous. the will and the work, freedom will prevail."
We
Kennedy had to confess his back trouble to the nation. He had to admit that he had been on crutches and would be on crutches, that he was undergoing treatment for the new strain. White House reporters, remembering Eisenhower's heart at tack and his stroke, rushed to the phones when Salinger made the announcement. They clamored to see White House physi cian Janet Travell, but Salinger would not produce her for an interview and she would not talk to the press. Her reports, issued through the press secretary, were all that was availa ble, and they were skimpy. Then John Kennedy wanted a rest and time to think about
905
what he had
learned.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
He
flew to
Palm Beach with only
his
friend Charles Spaulding. He stayed in the home of the Wrightsmans, a ghost mansion now as the muggy summer
Its furniture was swathed in dust covers which Kennedy did not bother to remove. He stayed on the patio, totally out of sight of the public. He slept late and lounged in his pajamas. When he moved about, he went on crutches, and he received more treatment for his back. In the evenings he sipped daiquiris and pushed Frank Sina tra records into a small portable player, but he only half lis tened to the tuned-down voice in the background. His mind was still half a world away. He felt better about his encounter with Khrushchev as his health improved in the sun. It had become clear that his pre cautions had paid off and that the country had an honest and
heat came on Florida.
sober reckoning of the meetings. By anybody's scorebook, there was no winner. Neither Khrushchev nor Kennedy had
bested the other in the
talks.
But Kennedy had done
well,
and he
felt
it.
One morning he
squinted into a fine rain that drifted
through the open Spanish columns. "To me," he said, "hav ing spent the time with Khrushchev gives a clearer idea of the
intensity of the struggle
ing to be difficult. I Russian commitment to their system in certain areas and our commitment to our system in the same areas, it was going to be a close thing to prevent war. There is heightened danger
for both countries."
next ten years are go came away feeling that in view of the
are in.
we
The
He
had concluded, continued the President
to a friend,
that he was not going to get any agreement with the Soviets on nuclear testing that was out. He must decide this coun
try's action
on
its
own
merits.
There would be no immediate
resumption of tests, he said. For the moment the political disadvantages outweighed the military gains. Kennedy saw how total the deadlock over Berlin now was. Already he had ordered a step-up on the contingency plan
United
States
ning
His belief that this country must prepare wars was strengthened, and he planned to to fight guerrilla give even more attention to that phase of defense.
for that city.
His thoughts of the weeks ahead were sober, but knowing
London and Home
20^7
Khrushchev better gave Kennedy more confidence. The trip to Europe gave him something else the
credentials as leader of the free world.
official
By
the right of inherit
ance he actually received the title when he took over from Eisenhower. But it really was not his by virtue of his own ? actions. N ow he had gone to see de Gaulle. He had journeyed
Khrushchev. And he had stopped to report to MacHe had gathered in the strings of the alliance. When he talked with the Soviet Premier, he did not dwell on the necessity of clearing decisions with his allies. When he
on
to see
millan.
stated the position of the free world, he stated it as the leader "This is where w e stand/' And afterward he gave
r
his
own
evaluation of the talks
w ith Khrushchev
r
before false
hopes could arise and circulate.
John Kennedy was working ing better for John Kennedy.
better,
and things were work
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MIDSUMMER AND
WORRY
turned to the task of strengthening the free world. Khrushchev tried to shake it apart.
leader went on TV before his peo had In a bare floodlighted studio, done. Kennedy
KENNEDY The Russian

ple, as
steel
speaking slowly, peering intently at his manuscript, pausing often to gulp mineral water, Khrushchev edged his voice with
and
declared,
"We
cannot delay a peace treaty with
Germany any
be achieved
longer.
peaceful settlement in Europe must

the dark green uniform of a Soviet
this year."
One day he donned
lieutenant general and, with a chestful of medals, waddled up to the rostrum in the Kremlin's Great Hall. It was the
twentieth anniversary of Hitler 's invasion of Russia, and he had a few more bitter things to say to the West, including an answer to Kennedy's warning that the United States might have to begin nuclear testing again if no agreement was reached in Geneva. "Such threats will frighten no one. We must warn these gentlemen: the moment the United States
resumes nuclear explosions, the Soviet Union will promptly

start
testing
its
nuclear weapons.
The
Soviet
Union has
quite a few devices that have been worked out and need
practical testing."
Then Khrushchev announced

viet defense spending.
a 30 per cent increase in So
reaction to his words in Khrushchev's own East Ger and East Berlin was immediate. Not since the 1953 many
The
Midsummer and Worry
9 DO
East German uprising had the tide of refugees from com munism reached such proportions. The somber procession of
escapees leaped from the normal 500 a day to nearly 1,500, The 12,000 allied troops in West Berlin began to sharpen their alert. In the gray dawn hours of late June the 5,000
American combat
soldiers fled their
warm
beds and rushed
to their defense positions in a practice alert. Troop carriers and tanks rumbled over the misty streets, machine-gun posi
tions
ing.
were
set
up along
the curbs.
Thus began
a time of wait
the floor of the House of Representatives, California's Holifield clamored for a resumption of nuclear testing. Chet the people Uneasiness crept through the country as on
On
TV
saw Kennedy hobble on crutches to his plane in Palm Beach, to be lifted in a cherry-picker crane up to his cabin door, re turned to the ground in another hydraulic lift when he ar
rived at Washington's
Andrews Air Force
Base.
virus caught the President, and for a day and a half, as Dr. Janet Travell and Dr. Preston Wade, called from New
York
to make sure the presidential temperature was uncon nected with the back ailment, uneasiness hovered around the to believe
White House. The newsmen were willing

thing.
any
As always, they craved details. Kennedy had taken a swim the night before. Dr. Travell had seen him in the evening, and he had been feeling well, no hint of a virus. Then,
around 1:30 A.M., he awoke and felt ill. His throat hurt, his head ached, his stomach was just a little upset. Kennedy took his own temperature and found he had a fever. He
sped over shortly after 2 A.M., after Dr. George Burkley. Worried, Jackie alerting her assistant, had gotten out of bed to help her husband. Dr. Travell gave
called Dr. Travell,
who
the President an intramuscular shot of penicillin (1.2 mil

lion units)
and then some tetracycline by mouth. She also amount of corticosteroids that he normally took for an adrenal insufficiency, this to help combat the in fection. Dr. Travell and her patient stayed awake all night;
increased the
at
about 7 A.M. the temperature reached 101.6, then broke. By 1 1 A.M. it was normal, and John Kennedy was asleep. The details flashed out over the wires.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
"Now
we've got an invalid for President," snorted one

Hill.
I
Republican on the
"How much
longer do
have to hang around here?"
grumbled Kennedy from
his bed.
Hour after hour, while the virus died, the President summoned his Berlin advisers. He met with them in the
mornings in his office, sometimes he invited them to lunch and sometimes they gathered around his bed in the early afternoon as he rested and had hot packs on his back. Over scrambled eggs and coffee in the family dining room, the President told his congressional leaders that the United States and Russia seemed on a "collision course." In his private moments the President worried about the
state of preparedness of the country.
Were
the people ready
for a
showdown? Most persons did not
realize the seriousness
of the situation, thought Kennedy. And appeals over TV, stories in the magazines and newspapers, his warnings in the
news conferences were not enough. There had
to
be some
sense of participation. Kennedy mulled over a plan for partial mobilization. He ordered McNamara to take another new and searching look
talked about getting ships out of mothballs, of putting the Strategic Air Command bombers on a more intensive alert.
at
our
state of preparedness.
He
of State
Kennedy sought advice from everyone. Former Secretary Dean Acheson, preparing a basic paper on the threat ened city, asked the help of former Soviet Ambassador AveHarriman.
rell
The two
of them, both veterans of the
Tru
man
era, met one morning walking to a National Security Council meeting. "It seems like old times," said Harriman.
Acheson grinned, and the two strode into the familiar Cabinet Room. Summer settled fully on the Potomac. The temperatures climbed into the eighties, and the tourists descended like lo custs. On one day 13,595 sightseers went through the White House, a new record, but a record that was soon shattered by
another vacation-time onslaught. Kennedy sought Hyannis Port on the week ends, and on workday evenings he some
times boarded one of his two yachts, the
"Honey
Fitz" or the
Midsummer and Worry

"Patrick J./' for a cool cruise on the Potomac.
911
turned to improving his own staff. He announced that Maxwell Taylor would become his military adviser. This was his answer to the Pentagon for the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy
He
would have at his elbow an expert and questioning mind to review the military proposals that poured from the Joint
Taylor had finished his secret evaluation of Bob Kennedy had gro\vn to have more the Cuban respect for Taylor each week as he met his select review com mittee. The President, too, had watched with growing ap
Chiefs of
Staff.
failure.
preciation.
Having looked over the national

Berlin, Vietnam, Laos
security
prob
lems looming ahead
he decided he
needed the wiry general who had once commanded the "Bat tered Bastards of Bastogne," the famed loist Airborne Di
vision.
Back
to wTiting
and
his
New
York law practice went Adolf
Berle, special Latin American adviser. Of all the areas that could not get going, Latin America was the worst. The irrascible
Berle gallivanted irritating the career men.
all
He
over the State Department, swept into Latin America it
self
lowed
with his sandpaper personality, and the protests fol his trail. He was a man of brilliant ideas but abrasive
application. For five months the job of Assistant Secretary of State for Inter- American Affairs had been vacant. Kennedy
desperately wished to get his Alliance for Progress moving, and he wanted the best man he could find to head his Latin
But the policy area was populated not only by Berle but also by White House staffers Richard Goodwin and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., not to mention self-anointed experts by the legion. Twenty-one persons were sounded out for the
section.
job,
but
all
refused
when
Someone had to go, and it Ambassador to Chile Robert

sistant Secretary of State for
they peered at the spider w eb. was Berle. Then Kennedy recalled
T
F.
Woodward, naming him As

looked over the sprawiing He offered a
(i)
Inter-American Affairs.
One former
Roosevelt
man
New
Frontier at this point and was horrified. three-point formula for smoothing the path:
Have
the
President stop talking to two out of every three newspaper men he was seeing. ("Sooner or later John Kennedy is go
ing to have to learn that he can't deal with reporters
now
212
the
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
as a politician/') (2) Fire every other
same way he did
New
Frontiersman. ("Most of the trouble

staff
now
stems from
in.
the eggheads, the professors
The old Kennedy brought members who have been around don't cause trouble, but the professors not only meddle but talk about it.") (3) Eliminate the dinner party. ("They ought to make all the staff eat in a common room all the time with guards at the doors. There is too much talk at Washington dinner tables, you can hear anything you want to hear from respon
Kennedy
sible
men if you get invited to enough who had spoken was only half joking.
Kennedy
felt
dinners/')
The man
of operation.
stung by some of the criticism of his method One publication declared flatly that his White
down
House system simply was not working, had become bogged in a maze of overlapping special advisers and task
forces.
reporter for this same publication had reached home wearily one night about 8:30 and was mixing himself a mar
tini
when
the
to
me
it
again,"
phone rang. "I hear you bastards have done it came the unmistakable voice of John Fitzger
it
ald Kennedy. "I haven't read

that
yet
everybody says not
to,
just make me all the madder, but I hear it's the worst you've done/' There followed between bites of the President's own dinner (the phone apparently being cra dled between the Kennedy shoulder and cheek) some pointed observations on contemporary journalism and its practice. But while the outward view was more ragged than ever
would
better about the shape of things inside. He had adjusted his own time, so that he felt better. He did not try to do everything and see everybody himself. Max well Taylor swung immediately into his new chores. At last
before,
Kennedy
felt
affairs.
the State Department began to assume the direction of Latin Kennedy rested after lunch, made sure that he swam
once or twice a day in the White House pool, which had its water warmed to 87 degrees. His back was making satisfac
tory progress until a string of unlucky accidents set it back. He once leaned from his desk chair to pick up a paper he
had dropped, and the unruly chair dumped him out on his side, wrenching his back. Another time he leaned over some letters and gave the sore muscles another tug. And one morn-
Midsummer and Worry ing when he came to breakfast with his congressional leaders, he teetered back on the rear legs of an antique chair in the family dining room. There was a minor explosion and the
chair split into pieces, depositing the frightened President on the floor. 1 Again, his back suffered. But these were tempo rary setbacks. Steadily the pain eased. Kennedy accepted a chance to send another direct warning to Khrushchev. The Soviet Premier's son-in-law Alexei Adzhubei, editor of Izvestia y
and Mikhail Kharlamov, chief of the
press section of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, had appeared debate in New York wT ith Press Secretary Salinger on a
TV
and The Xew York Times' Harrison Salisbury. Salinger in vited them to a hasty meeting with Kennedy. Khrushchev had just made another of his speeches, this one predicting that the Soviet Union w ould outstrip this country economically by 1970. Kennedy had read the speech with interest, ordered some of his own figures for his forth coming press conference. They showed that at the current
r
rates of
growth (United
States, 3
per cent; Soviet Union,

thirds of our
6 per cent) the Russians
would not reach two
output by 1970.
Would Adzhubei be
seeing his father-in-law soon? asked
Kennedy. Yes, answered the Russian. He would see him on Wednes day morning, two days hence. "Your father-in-law has his view, but I w ant to tell you ours. Here's wiiat is really going to happen," said Kennedy,
y
reciting the growth figures. "But those aren't our figures," protested Adzhubei.
"You people have been spouting your

President.
"It
is
figures/' said the
"How about us giving ours out?"
high jumper," continued the Presi dent. "Between zero and six feet he can go up a foot at a time. But above six feet he can go up only an inch at a time." Then Kennedy looked at the two Soviet men levelly. He again addressed himself to Adzhubei. "I just wrant to and your father-in-law have no doubts make sure that
like the story of a
you about our position in Berlin."
1 After this incident, he sought out the White House curator and said that he appreciated antiques but wondered if he could have just a plain old chair that would hold him up, never mind its heritage.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
at
Get tougher, be hard. This was the Kennedy dogma midsummer, 1961.
"The
State
Department
all
is
a bowl of jelly," he growled
those people over there who are con got I we need to smile less and be tougher." think stantly smiling. For hard times, continued the President, we needed more
privately. "It's
hard people.
The
when
nell to
in
Vienna Premier Khrushchev.
greatest gratification had come to him he had introduced his aide Kenny O'Don-
"Kenny gave him
the coldest look he got on the trip,"
laughed the President with great relish. Everybody else in Vienna, said Kennedy,
had run around
making sure not
to
do anything
to offend the Russians, al
ways to smile. "I'm beginning to think," he said, "that when we go around like that all the time, those people just think
we're soft."
As
if
taking his
bomber man
advice to heart, Kennedy named bigCurt LeMay to head the Air Force. It was a
own
surprise to many that this old w arrior would get the job at a time when the younger, smoother, more flexible genera
r
LeMay had the tough most. needed ness Kennedy the country Kennedy brooded more about his State Department. Though it was not functioning the way he wanted it to func tion, he did not blame Dean Rusk, whom he found to be an
tion of missile
felt
men
was in vogue. But
increasingly skillful diplomat and valuable adviser. Yet, if Rusk was to perform these functions and not run the shop,
somebody else should run it. It seemed, at the time, anyway, that nobody had hold of the wheel. Kennedy was disappointed in the ideas produced for the Berlin crisis by the State Department. "It's a disgrace what the State Department comes up with sometimes," said one
high-ranking
New
Frontiersman.
"A
high school kid could
do as good. The first draft of the aide memoire on Berlin was awful. You wouldn't have submitted it in Government I-A at Harvard. The stuff they did on Cuba was bad. They didn't do anything on Southeast Asia. One of the best papers that's been done on Southeast Asia came from the Defense
Department."
Midsummer and Worry
What had been

Kennedy decided
his
to try to
building for some weeks came to a head. move Chester Bowles, the State
1
Department's number-two man, into a job that better suited temperament. As Under Secretary, it was Bowles respon
the
department running correctly while Dean more glamorous path of high policy. But the mechanics of a vast government bureaucracy were not to Bowies' liking. The former advertising man preferred to think big thoughts about the world. On desks throughout
sibility to get the
Rusk followed
the State Department the small problems that make the big problems went unsolved. Unanswered routine requests
backed up in folders as Bowles persued the questions of what to do with continents. White House aides began to gripe openly about him. Whenever he was involved in a matter
with the White House,
it
seemed
Cuba that he had been against the operation, thus undercutting Kennedy. He had come to the National Security Council meeting in the Cuban aftermath with the soft paper which Bob Ken nedy had chewed to bits. As a one-time proponent of the two-China policy, he had irritated a great many administra
been quick
to
it
He had
make
to turn fuzzy. known after
tion people
scale
by his insistence that there should be a fulldebate on the question. Bit by bit he had worn out his
friends.
for lunch. The President was had a swim in the White House pool, a new Kennedy softening technique, they went up to the private quarters to eat and talk. Gently the President suggested that Bowles might like to move into something different, away from the tiresome details of running a de partment perhaps into an ambassadorship, such as the very desirable spot in Chile; or some special adviser's post, where he could roam and think. The President talked in generali ties. If Bowles did not become alarmed as he sipped Ken nedy's excellent French wine, he did when he left the office. The conversation added up to one thing: he was being moved aside. He alerted his liberal friends, and immediately they
Kennedy asked him over
jovial as always. After they
leaked a raft of stories about the injustice of trying to

the one
dump
man who had opposed

it
the
Cuban
week end
blew into a
full-scale
Over a July newspaper flap. Kennedy

fiasco.
5
to
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
came back
meal
to Washington and invited Bowles to a second smooth matters out, since the President for that mo ment wanted no more trouble. Bowles had delayed his own execution; but he had also made certain it would come in the next few weeks. He had performed masterfully just that kind of an operation which the Kennedys detest. "He'll go," said Kennedy in private, then turned to the business of Ber
lin.
whether John America romped along the beaches and hiked into the mountains, but an edge of uncertainty made people turn on their transistor radios more frequently and scan headlines with more regularity than a vacation schedule usually demanded. John Kennedy adopted some of the double life himself.
T
The
country
w as
getting the feel of
crisis,
Kennedy thought
so or not. Vacationing
He summoned
his advisers to the fantail of his father's yacht,
the "Marlin," in Hyannis Port. Clutching a big black looseleaf notebook stuffed with the top-secret Berlin papers (his
staff called it
clothes, soaking
the ''Berlin Book"), Kennedy lounged in sport up the welcome sun. The boat might run
the eight miles to
Dead Neck or
it
might hover
off
Egg
Is
land in Xantucket Sound. Perhaps Dean Rusk and Kennedy would keep the conversation going as Robert McNamara
and Maxwell Taylor swam,
to
come back cooled and
re
freshed to join again in the urgent policy discussion. Separating the business and personal lives of John Ken nedy is, in the journalistic world, as difficult as splitting the atom in the realm of physics. In the course of a normal day it
virtually impossible. It is as accurate to say that he plays golf (or did, until his back injury stopped that) while he works as it is to say that he works while he plays golf. He
is
may
grant an interview while he swims, and the number of sun-lighted conferences on his patio or on one of his boats
they have gone uncalculated. Yet they have been any other conferences. He recharges himself at the same time that he expends energy. He has not in recent years had a pure moment of rest or escape as defined by the mass of Americans. He comes close to being a perpetual-motion machine of flesh and blood. Many marvel at this energy. The answer is not complex: since he is extremely wealthy, every
are so
many
as vital as
Midsummer and Worry

concern, every menial service, which consume half or of a less affluent citizen's time, is not even a thought in
oTH
more Ken
nedy's mind. His clothes, his cars, his phones, his airplanes these come naturally, they always are there. The wants of
his wife
ride or sunshine he wants, he has
is a swim or a boat moment, or at least in a swift airplane ride. Staff, press and a gasping public scramble to even imagine the pace they must set to keep up. Exhausted themselves, they spread the myth that the Ken nedy glands must be superhuman. But the answer once again
and children are no worry.
If it
it
in a
lies
sufficient quantities,
in the mystique of the dollar, which, when gathered in can bathe a man in the human services
that free his
mind
for total concentration
on
his
work.
The
tribute to John Kennedy and his entire family is concentration has turned on public service. Others with equal wealth have found their "work" in the perfumed
that this
chambers of cafe society, somewhat remote from the country roads of Wisconsin and deserted mines of West Virginia, w-here John Kennedy w on the right to run for the presi
T
dency. In such times as the
ual refurbishment in the
summer of w ar of
T
1961, the value of perpet

wills that
was developing
was immense. For the Kennedy
fight
was
tually everything the President did. in Berlin. It claimed some part of every minute,
his conscious
now showing in vir He became immersed

whether in
world or in the subconscious. He lashed out in his press conferences. "The crisis over Berlin is Soviet-manufactured/* he stormed. "The obvious to make permanent purpose here is not to have peace but the partition of Germany. ... No one can fail to appreciate
the gravity of the threat. ... It involves the peace and the security of the peoples of West Berlin. It involves the di and commitments of the United States, rect
responsibilities
the United
Kingdom and
.
France. It involves the peace

.
and
the security of the world.

If
."
Khrushchev cared to listen, there was still some Yankee humor, too. "Chairman Khrushchev has compared the United States to a w orn-out runner living on its past performance and stated that the Soviet Union would outproduce the United States by 1970. Without wishing to trade hyperbole
r
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
with the Chairman, I do suggest that he reminds me of the tiger hunter who has picked a place on the wall to hang the
tiger's skin
long before he has caught the

. .
.
tiger.
This
tiger-
has other ideas.
engage in this competition which is peaceful and which could only result in a better living standard for both of our people. In short,
is not such an aged runner and, to para " Mr. phrase Coolidge, 'We do choose to run/ The President withdrew even more from the outside world as threats from Berlin grew. A staff member found that now and then as he talked to Kennedy, the President was not listening, his mind had wandered on to other things. "He is
We
invite the
USSR
to
the United States
serious for far greater lengths of time," said an old Harvard friend. "I've spent a lot of time with him when he's been relaxing. In the old days he was more bantering. He tosses off fewer wisecracks now." Sometimes those closest to the President could see it the least. *'It's like osmosis," said Dave Powers, the White House receptionist and crony. "He just kind of absorbs it without
realizing
it."
more
The Kennedy
the
Cabinet
officers
often became frustrated by
consuming international matters. Secretary of the Inte rior Stewart Udall, who had worked fiercely to develop a farseeing conservation and development program, could hardly get the presidential ear. "He's imprisoned by Berlin," fretted
Udall.
"He
subjects,
totally."
has a restless mind that likes to roam over all but ever since Europe, Berlin has occupied him
little different, too.
Kennedy looked a
(his
back ruled out
don, shot his weight
golf), as well as back up to 180.
His sedentary life French Chef Rene Ver-
His isolation was a cerebral one, because never before had he been so surrounded by family and close friends. He could, and did, with a phone call summon such intimates as K. Le-
moyne
Billings
from
hour's plane flight.
New York for a movie it was only an He actually worked at home; lunched
and Caroline were nearer than
there, played there. Jackie
2 This reference was particularly amusing to reporters and members of the White House staff who had, with some regularity, come to call the President
"the Tiger."
Midsummer and Worry
OTA
i/
when he was
in the Senate,
and he saw much more

T
of them.
His brothers and sisters were all, w ith the exception of the Lawfords and the Teddy Kennedys, in Washington on fed
eral jobs. Friends
the campaign
from swarmed
his college days, his Navy days and in to take federal posts. But Berlin
blanked them out. The words of Joe Kennedy came back: "The family can be there. But there is not much they can do sometimes for the President of the United States/' There was another subtle change: John Kennedy became the head of the Kennedy clan; he was the focus of the family.
All the energies of its energetic members were being applied to help him succeed. His decisions were the family's de
cisions.
The
presence of the enigmatic Joe Kennedy faded even
further from public view. His desire was to see that he did whatever he could for the President of the United States.
When
the President was in
Palm Beach or
in
Hyannis
Port,
the elder
Kennedy devoted himself
to seeing that his son
was comfortable, was not bothered, did and had what he wanted. A new boat pier went up off Joe Kennedy's section of Hyannis Port beach, to make it easier for John Kennedy to go cruising aboard Joe Kennedy's yacht, the "Marlin." The playing field below "the big house/' Joe Kennedy's resi dence in the three-house compound, which the father had so carefully selected for his athletic boys when he bought the
became a helicopter pad, and when John Kennedy w eek end, his father was standing on the with his wide edge reassuring smile. For the Kennedy back, there was the light-blue electric golf cart that would whisk him anywhere on the premises. Joe Kennedy's own masseur was at the President's disposal; he had the use of any of the rooms of the big house for visiting dignitaries and govern ment conferences. 3
property,
whirled in for a
When John Kennedy w as

r
in
Washington, he sometimes
talked to his father daily by phone. But these were not calls of intrigue; they were calls of encouragement and reassur3 Joe Kennedy, using his old Hollywood contacts, helped negotiate the movie rights for Bob Donovan's book PT 109, the story of the President's war experiences. The deal came to a tidy $150,000, some $2,500 for each of the crew members or their widows and the remaining $120,000 for Donovan.
22O
important
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
ance for the President of the United States and also the most
man in
the
Kennedy clan.
rantings of Khrushchev were totally forgotten on the evening that Pakistan's visiting President Mohammed Ayub
The
Khan and
his wife
were feted on the lawn of
Mount
Ver-
non, George Washington's magnificent prominence that manded a sweeping view of the Potomac. Delighted
com
by the use of the beautiful old palaces for official entertaining dur her with the President to ing trip Europe, Jackie had re
turned to Washington with the idea that the same thing could be done here.
On
warm July
ships lay quietly tied at Pier
night four freshly scrubbed white Navy Number One in the naval weap
ons plant on the Anacostia River. There was the metalhulled "Guardian," one of four remaining PT boats, the
two Presidential yachts

rick J."
the "Honey Fitz" and the "Pat and Navy Secretary John Connally's own boat, the
"Sequoia." Along the wharf, the white-coated Navy and Army escort officers bustled back and forth, making sure that the 138 guests boarded the right ship, each guest to be piped aboard in the finest Navy manner.
Inside the yachts everything was astir. There were strolling musicians on each, white-coated Filipino waiters hurrying cocktails. Beyond the western bank of the Potomac a huge With such orange sun was setting in a cloudless
sky.
light
ing,
even the
silty river
became a golden ribbon.
The
presidential limousines rolled
up
to the pier,
convoy churned out into the

boat, followed
river. First
and the went the big PT
by the "Patrick
J."
The
President's favorite,
"Honey Kennedy and Ayub on board, fol lowed in their wakes. Last came the "Sequoia," with Jackie and Ayub's daughter on the fantail. polished
Fitz," with
the
The
trio
western sky flamed as the sun set and Lester Lanin's on the "Sequoia" swung into "Mack the Knife," one of
among her guests, chatting a lit with each. Lanin's trio (bass fiddle, accordion, guitar) whanged out "The Eyes of Texas Are upon You," and the
tle
the First Lady's favorites. Jackie drifted in and out
Midsummer and Worry

guests
221
made Speaker Sam Rayburn stand

Jr.,
Franklin Roosevelt,
War
how
II,
up. a destroyer skipper from World stuck an inquisitive nose in the pilot's cabin to see
the
Navy crew
navigated. Oklahoma's famous football
coach
fitness
Bud
Wilkinson, in Washington for Kennedy's physicalprogram, climbed to the upper deck, thrust his lean
jaw into the wind and decided it wasn't quite as good as a but almost. Allen Dulles reminisced about prairie breeze
some of
Dulles,
his sailing days with his brother, the late
John Foster
and in
this
way, making
a creditable eleven knots,
the flotilla of party-goers slid down the river to Mount Vernon. On the boats were the Dillons, the McNamaras, the
Robert Kennedys; Senators Mansfield, Dirksen and Syming ton and their wives; Vice President and Mrs. Johnson; Mrs.
Nicholas Longworth; ambassadors, congressmen and assorted
others.
As the boats came

as
is
to
the
Navy
custom.
Mount Vernon, each paid its honors, The bells tolled and the crew and
guests stood reverently on the side facing the big mansion. From the boats the guests were transferred to a string of
black Cadillacs for the trip up the steep hill. Marines in full dress lined the road at present arms. On the lawn, while mint juleps w ere served, a short pageant on the fighting
T
techniques of Washington's
lars
own Revolutionary War

under
regu
w as performed. Mount Vernon shone

r
brilliantly
time in history
it
had been equipped
spotlights, the first with electric lights.
The
ladies in short skirts, the
men
in white dinner jackets
and his brother, who wore black (all except the President tuxedos) wandered fearlessly over the grass. The Army en
gineers had for three days running sprayed four square miles of the area, and not a mosquito, chigger, tick or ant had sur
vived this military might.
huge tent the guests were seated at small tables, by candlelight. White House chef Verdon pre sided proudly over a culinary innovation. His avocado and crabmeat mimosa, poulet chasseur avec couronne de riz clamart, frambroises & la creme Chantilly and petits fours sees had been rushed from his basement domain at 1600 Penna
Under
and they
ate
222
sylvania
Avenue aboard mobile Army field kitchens, kept hot and delicious until a legion of waiters offered them to
the guests.
After dinner the party left the pavilion and strolled across the lawn to row s of camp chairs set up for a concert by the
T
orchestra played beneath the stars, and a huge ash tree, its top lighted, made a natural stage setting. As the orchestra played Mozart's "allegro con spirito"
National Symphony.
The
from the Symphony No. 35 in D Major, and Gershwin's An American in Paris, waiters passed champagne and Corona
Coronas,
Back on board the
boats, the guests
danced
as the
music
echoed out over the water, which

blackness. Jackie's staff
now
reflected the starlit
members had thoughtfully rounded up sweaters and jackets to protect the ladies from the un
hours of the next day, the stodgy old capital on the Potomac admitted there had been nothing like it in this century, maybe not even since
first
familiar cool of the river valley. When the party was over in the
Mount Vernon's original owner had grandly welcomed own guests on that magnificent hill above the river.
his
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE WALL
IN
T H E west, great thunderheads piled up over the Po tomac valley, bringing premature darkness but breath ing coolness on a Washington which had smothered in
gg-degree heat all day. Faint light filtered through the
west side
tone of a
window on the of the White House's second floor. In this muted day's end two figures sat in a vast silence. One was
tall
arched
the President of the
United
States, the other
was his trusted
friend
crisis
Dave Powers. The date was July 25, 1961. The Berlin indeed, the world crisis had grown to such propor
to talk to
television
tions that
the
John Kennedy had decided once again American people. That night he was to go on
to explain his latest proposals for strengthening the free
world
communist threat. In his hand was a copy of the speech he would give to the United States and the world. It was, perhaps, as tough a speech as any president has ever had to give in peacetime. It was a call to America for partial mobilization, for psychologi cal preparation for the Berlin showdown. It was a ringing warning to Russia that the free world would not abandon its
against the
obligations.
Kennedy read and reread the paragraphs, now and then glancing out the window at the gray hulk of the Executive
Office Building,
State
still
which had once housed the Departments of young nation. Beyond, the clouds, darkening, tumbled and whirled as a front of cooler
and
War
in a lusty
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
air fought to
sweep away the heavy heat. speech was not yet completed. Kennedy had changed added and and cut. In the west wing of the White House
The
secretaries typed furiously to talk by the deadline of 10 P.M.
produce a reading copy of the
For the moment the President sat in the West Hall, which Jackie had turned into an informal living area. On the walls around the President hung paintings by great American art
ists
Sargent, Homer and Prendergast. They loomed dimly through the thin light, reminders of the American heritage
of which
the guardian. labored over the ending of the speech. He did not like the words that were written. He took a yellow legal tab
Kennedy was
He
still
let,
cradled
it
in his lap
and began
to scribble.
"We must
look to long days ahead which if severing can bring us what we
my
responsibilities in these
and per ... In meeting coming months as President, I

are courageous
all desire.
all,
we
need your goodwill and your support and, above

prayers.
.
your
."
As a summer bachelor, with
Kennedy
his family away on Cape Cod, often dined with Powers. Now the two men moved
to the dining room. Page by page the final speech arrived. As each fresh page was delivered by messenger, Kennedy cameras. Powers timed read it as if he were before die
TV
his delivery,
keeping track of the total minutes.
There was
of banter between the two. Generally when he was with Powers the President relaxed. Powers swam with
minimum
him in the pool, accompanied him on trips, ate w ith him when the family was gone. At such moments they w ould talk of baseball, football, politics and people. But there were times when Kennedy did not w ant to talk, and this
r
was one of them. It was a serious hour, but it was not a grim one. Kennedy had reached the end of long hours of deliberation. He had listened to endless advice from his officials. He had read
thousands of words of
Nikita Khrushchev's threats.
cisions,
memorandums and he had pondered Then he had made his de

to talk
and now he was ready

sat
about them.
"Marlin" or in the
Kennedy had
on the
fantail of the
The Wall
low wicker chairs on the patio behind his house, fringed with petunias, weighing world events. Slowly a Kennedy philos ophy had emerged. To react blindly and with panic to each world crisis by
sending troops, mobilizing National Guard units or supply ing new arms and ammunition to the local armies was not an answer to Khrushchev, it seemed to Kennedy as he studied the globe. Thus, to ship or fly fresh armies into West Berlin and to make it a bristling arsenal would be foolish, went his
reasoning. Khrushchev could simply ignore Berlin for as yet there was no real trouble there and start a brush fire
someplace
the world; this country would be con with fronted again the job of moving troops, running with its tongue out to catch the enemy, and all, of course, at huge
else in
expense.
What had to be done, Kennedy concluded, was to revamp and strengthen our armed forces so that this extra muscle could be applied around the globe with ease. More flexibil more airlift capacity, more guerrilla train ity was needed more men. But it all had to fit in with some kind of ing, just
civil-defense program. Dave Powers in his total devotion to his boss liked to say
Knute Rockne must have coined the phrase "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" for John Kennedy. As Dave watched Kennedy perform from his first election in 1946 through all the other campaigns into the White House, he found that Kennedy went better as an underdog. It seemed to be true in the month of July, as the crisis grew. Kennedy's own sense seemed sharper. He was brusque,
that
to the point. He enjoyed finding solutions to the prob lems as they came along, and he showed more confidence in himself and in his conclusions.
more
"Here's a picture for you of a couple of old soldiers/* chortled Kennedy one noon to me. He held up a color photo
graph taken the day before of Douglas MacArthur and him self. MacArthur had been a luncheon guest in the White House. "How about that for a magazine cover? You know
what MacArthur said at lunch? He said that we shouldn't put one American soldier on the continent of Asia we couldn't win a fight in Asia. I thought some of the Republi-
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
cans were going to choke about a swim?"
when he
said that.
Come
on,
how
But before he went out
the door, he circled Mrs. Lincoln's
office, scanning the letters she thrust at him. She held the phone. "Chester Bowles is on the line." Kennedy reached for the receiver, settled behind his secretary's desk and at the same time picked up another batch of letters. You're leaving for Asia? "Hello, Chet, how are you?
.
Have
good
trip.
I'll
see
you when you get back,
all right?"
"Let's go swim."
The
President
w alked
r
out along the porch, glancing

first.
down
the south lawn.
do too much at now I can do this." so ganized

"I tried to
I
I've got things better or
suggested timidly that

suit.
hadn't
come equipped with a
bathing "That's okay," said Kennedy. "In this pool you don't need one. It's a little hot, but I need it for my back. I've decided
that the real trouble
is
sitting in that office all day.

I
When
was out on the campaign, bother me."
got exercise
and my back didn't
pool, built in 1933 by Franklin Roosevelt, lies in the connecting link of the house between the main mansion and
The
west wing executive offices. It is one end is a small exercise room.

T
fifty
by
fifteen feet,
and
off
Its deep blue-green w ater was perfectly still. At one end near a low diving board a blue plastic boat drifted, left over from a romp by Caroline. A Secret Service agent stationed
himself at the pool door.
The
President,
stiff-backed
r
and
slow,
went down the
chrome ladder into the w ater.
Now
his
mind turned
in the shallow water, muscles.
and Khrushchev. He stood hands on his back, and stretched the

to Berlin
The enigma of the Soviet Premier still nagged at him. Khrushchev provided one of the most baffling and disap pointing of his experiences in office. As he looked back over the talks, it was evident that there had been no region of "philosophical agreement" about the tragedy that a nuclear
The Wall
war might bring. "That was what was so discouraging about Vienna/' said Kennedy. He backstroked down the pool, showing some of the old Harvard style that had put him on the swimming team. He clung to the side and kicked gently, tread water and then just walked about in the warmth. He talked of the Berlin decisions he had made. There would be no declaration of a national emergency. Such a move would be too extreme. There would be no wholesale call-up of the National Guard or reserves; select units and skilled men only would be called. The draft would be in creased to get more men. But the situation did not demand an all-out effort yet, he said. Further, he feared a severe round of inflation if he moved too fast. He had decided that we needed an extensive fallout-shelter program, some food storage and a vast home-shelter education plan. The whole program would cost the taxpayers between $3 and $4 billion more. He had just about decided that he should ask for a tax increase to pay this extra bill that would give the nation a
feeling of participation in the emergency.
Other matters were on his mind, too. "Maxwell Taylor's damned good/* he mused about the man whom he had recently named military adviser. "I can't even remember w ho suggested him. But he's going to be fine. I thought that at first there might be a problem between him and some of the others. But there doesn't seem to be so
r
far. I don't anticipate any difficulty at the Pentagon. Taylor doesn't have that kind of personality/'
As he swam more, Kennedy seemed

der
to loosen up. "I
who
must have come from the State Department. any of the White House people did it/'
leaked those stories about Chester Bowles. I don't think
won They
He
tion
chuckled about a story in Time magazine's "Press" sec
which reported on some troubles that the Herald Tribune was having.
"I love to see Republicans giving
it
New York
The
it
to each other.
Herald Trib has given

for a change."
me
plenty.
wonder how they
like
His mind leaped from subject to subject, roaming, sum ming up. He swam the length of the pool in a strong crawl.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
Then
"I was ready to go into Laos. Yes, we were going to do it. because of Cuba I thought we'd better take another
look at the military planning for Laos.
What
found wasn't
good only two airstrips and all that. in bad shape if we'd done that. So I good to have men like Curt LeMay and Arleigh Burke com manding troops once you decide to go in. But these men aren't the only ones you should listen to when you decide whether to go in or not. I like having LeMay head the Air Force. Everybody knows how he feels. That's a good thing right now." The new Central Intelligence Agency head had been chosen John McCone. But there would be no announce ment right now, said Kennedy. Any premature leak would make it seem that Allen Dulles was being forced out. Dulles was to stay and serve out the term which he had set for him self. He had done a great deal for this country, was an hon orable and able man. The last thing John Kennedy wanted to do was slight him. As he walked toward the ladder after fifty minutes, Ken nedy reflected on Dean Rusk, his Secretary of State. He was a good man, and he was getting better by the day. Maybe at first Rusk had not been tough enough, said Kennedy. But he had learned quickly. The State Department still was not functioning just as he wanted it to function. There would be some more changes, but perhaps not right then. On his crutches Kennedy hobbled off for the elevator and lunch. In his bedroom he propped himself up in his huge canopied bed, sipped a bloody Mary. His food was brought to him on a tray. He ate with gusto: onion soup, fish, spinach. He fretted about the publishing world, which at the mo ment was not treating him in the kindest w ay. "I figure that the publishers have the most high-powered lobby in the country," he said. 'They killed that postal bill nicely. The
r
We'd have really been did what I could. It's
men.
ers.
information industry is controlled by such a small group of No other industry is so narrowly held there's Luce, Cowles, Roy Howard, Dryfoos, Sarnoff, Paley and a few oth
r
They account for most of it." His old adversary Richard Nixon did not escape the day's
Nixon had written an
article
notice.
on foreign aid which
had appeared in papers across the country that morning. "The same Nixon," Kennedy declared. "He started out say ing that everybody should be for long-term foreign aid and then he said he was for the Judd proposal, which is just the opposite. He's trying to win both the liberals and the conserv
atives.
The
tle
He's too clever. People see through it" President even had a moment to worry about the lit white Russian dog Pushinka, which Chairman Khru
to the
shchev had given
Kennedys. At
first
the dog had been
terribly nervous, but
now he seemed
his rest.
to
be happy, reported
Kennedy.
Then
it
was time for
There
still
was
much
to
be
done on the big speech.
The
would
idea.
speech had taken shape

all
much
his
as
Kennedy
felt
it
except the reference to a tax boost.
before the talk he had
summoned
On the day Cabinet to go over the
political men, such as Abe Ribicoff and Arthur had Goldberg, argued for it. But the fiscal experts had op it. posed Douglas Dillon, with aid from Budget Director David Bell and economist Walter Heller, maintained that
The
the
the speech in Hyannis Port. Sometimes he was alone in his second-floor bed
economy w*as strong enough to stand Kennedy accepted the view of his experts. Kennedy himself had labored hard on
the extra burden.
room
at the Cape, sometimes he sat in a living-room chair beside his special White House phone, one foot up on a foot
stool, the yellow legal pad in his lap. At such times the house was purposefully hushed, so that he could concentrate. His scribblings were sent on to Sorensen, who worked in Wash
ington.
Four major
drafts
were completed before the speech

it to.
read as the President wanted
In the
last
hours Kennedy
drafted personal letters to Macmillan and de Gaulle, ex plaining his talk to them.
Ten P.M.
of July 25 approached, and
Kennedy walked from
his living quarters to his office. It was a jungle of cables and microphones and arms and legs of reporters and technicians.
The
and
the
air conditioning
r
was turned low, so that the micro

kliegs blazed
phones w ould not
pick up the hum. The big cameramen sweated and cursed.
9oQ
CHAPTER SEVEN TEEN:

. .
a light reading, will ya, Dave? Damnit, who turned off that light, clumsy? Hey, Pierre, which door Move that light to the right a will he come through?
.
.
"Gimme
... I'm gettin' nothing. Hurry, hurry, what's here. There, there it goes, whew. He's almost wrong? Can I stand here? Where No, that's for the stills.
little,
Cleve.
do the
reels go?
What about us
.
.
reporters, Pierre?
God
damned
television anyway.
."
The
doors.
figure of the President slipped in through the
French
into
quieted, and then John Kennedy looked millions of living rooms. In the heat he began immedi
The room
ately to perspire.
"Good
Europe and the
evening. Seven weeks ago tonight
returned from
to report others.
on my meeting with Premier Khrushchev
His grim warnings about the future of the world, his aide memoire on Berlin, his subsequent speeches and threats which he and his agents have launched, and the increase in the Soviet military budget that he has announced,
have
all
prompted a
organization.
series of decisions
by the administra
be
tion after a series of consultations
with the members of the
NATO
done
"I
We are clear about what must

is
and we intend
hear
it
to
said that
do it. ... West Berlin

so,
if
militarily untenable.
And
so.
so was Bastogne.
is
And
in fact, was Stalingrad.
dangerous spot
tenable
men
but
brave
men
will
Any make it
"We do not want to fight

others in earlier times
we have fought before. And have made the same dangerous mis
take of assuming that the West was too selfish and too soft and too divided to resist invasions of freedom in other
lands.
.
.
.
"(i) I
am tomorrow
requesting the Congress for the cur
rent fiscal year an additional $3,247,000,000 of appropria tions for the Armed Forces. (2) To fill out our present Army divisions, and to make more men available for prompt de
ployment, I am requesting an increase in the Army's total authorized strength from 875,000 to approximately one mil
lion
requesting an increase of 29,000 and 63,000 men, respectively, in the active duty strength of the
(3)
I
men.
am
The Wall
e>91
Navy and Air
Force.
(4)
To
fulfill
these
manpower
needs, I
ordering that our draft calls coming months: I am asking the Congress for authority to order to active duty certain ready reserve units and in dividual reservists, and to extend tours of duty. ... (5)
the
am
be doubled and tripled in
Many ships and planes once headed for retirement are to be retained or reactivated, increasing our airpower tactically and our sealift, airlift and antisubmarine warfare capability.
In addition, our strategic air power will be increased by de some laying the deactivation of 8-47 bombers. (6) Finally,
1.8 billion
about half the
total
sum
is
needed for the pro
ammunition and equip We have another sober responsibility. ... In ment. Tomorrow I May, pledged a new start on civil defense.
curement of nonnuclear weapons,
.
am
requesting of the Congress
immediate objectives: to structures public and private
new funds for the following identify and mark space in existing
that could be used for fall
out shelters in case of attack; to stock those shelters with food, water, first-aid kits and other minimum essentials for
survival; to increase their capacity; to
improve our
air-raid
warning and fallout-detection household warning system which

. .
.
systems,
is
including a new now under development.
The
addition of $207 million in civil-defense appropri
ations brings our total new defense budget requests to $3.454 billion, and a total of $47.5 billion for the year.*'
Such was the program, and it brought back memories of other voices from the early 1940*5. The talk was war talk. Kennedy had some more words for Khrushchev before he walked back to his room in the deserted White House. "We
have previously indicated our readiness to remove any actual irritants in West Berlin, but the freedom of that city is not We cannot negotiate with those who say, 'What's
is
negotiable.
The world what's yours is negotiable/ is not deceived by the communist attempt to label Berlin as a hotbed of war. There is peace in Berlin today. The source of world trouble and tension is Moscow, not Berlin.
mine
mine and
The
steps I that war. To

.
have indicated tonight are aimed at avoiding seek peace but we shall not sum it all up:
We
surrender.
."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
The country had listened well. It responded. The Congress Republicans and Democrats
into line
alike
fell
and passed
the legislation for

allied leaders
which the President

a
had asked.
Approval came from
for the President.
and even from
num
i
ber of neutral nations. Mail to the White House ran 100 to
Men
volunteered for the
Army
or recall
with the reserves and the local civil-defense headquarters, which for years had been forgotten, suddenly were besieged
for information. In Chicago, civil-defense head, who now
Leo Hoegh, Eisenhower's old had charge of selling shelters for Wonder Building Corporation, found that orders spurted. A normal month's quota was 400, but in two days the firm sold 137. Nobel Prize-winning chemist Willard Libby, for
mer member
of the
side of a hill,
AEC, dug himself a fallout shelter in the protected it w ith railroad ties and sandbags
r
and proudly posed for photographers, reciting the

of
30.
total cost
John Kennedy's spirit

Talking
cism.
lifted
with the nation's.
to a friend over the phone, he flared at some criti "Be tough?" he asked. "Everybody says, 'Be tough.' What do they mean? Invade Cuba now, go into Laos? What
else are
you supposed
to
do?" Maybe, joked the friend, they

the President, "is
mean bomb Moscow. "That," shot back the coward's way out."
Noting a paragraph in a national magazine which pointed out the fact that the "clothes-conscious" Kennedy brothers
in black tuxedos for the Mount Vernon party while the rest of the male guests were in white coats, the President phoned his objections. "What do you mean, the
had appeared
'clothes-conscious'
but
don't think
Kennedy brothers?" he Bobby is."
asked. "I
may
be,
The
correspondent, not believing that he heard correctly,
said simply, "What?" "I don't think Bobby
is very well dressed, do you?" came back the answer. "Why, he still wears those button-down shirts. They went out five years ago. The only people I know
who still wear them are
Chester and Adlai."
The Wall
from the Pres ident, the phone rang and he was told his brother was call had been rated by ing. Only a few days before Bob Kennedy
Another time,
as a visitor sat across the desk
a news magazine as the man with the greatest influence at the White House. Picking up the phone, Kennedy paused, he said put his hand over the speaker. Turning to his guest,
with a trace of
erful
mock
sarcasm, "This
l
is
the second
most pow
man in
the nation calling."
But there was

East
der,
scarcely time for such banter.
Germans fled 1,500 of them a day across the bor out of fear of the future. Another 1,000 were turned
its
back every day as the communist police began to drag

victims off the
cards, to clap
commuter them in jail.
trains, to invalidate identification
to the
Kennedy's disarmament adviser, John McCloy, flew back United States and reported to Kennedy on a confer ence with Khrushchev at the Soviet leader's Black Sea dacha.
told the President.
The Russian had been
mood, McCloy Khrushchev had seemed absolutely in tent on extracting what he called the "rotten tooth" of Ber
in a totally belligerent
lin.
from a Soviet launching pad went Gherman Titov an incredible seventeen earth orbits the second Rus sian astronaut. And the Russian Premier began to shout about a Soviet nuclear bomb equivalent to 100 million tons of TNT. "Gentlemen," he cried to the West, "your arms
Up
for
are too short."
The
fear that the East
Germans would
close the Berlin
border mounted, sending the count of escapees to new heights. As the East German officials made threatening
noises, the
On
near panic became worse, not better. August 13 it happened: Walter Ulbricht built the
It
Berlin Wall.
happened
swiftly, in
about four hours.
The
grim work started

First
i
at 2 A.M.,
and by dawn much of the ugly
wall seared the heart of the
city.
came the scream
of sirens, then the
rumble of tanks
few days prior to this conversation, the storv goes, the two brothers had met in the White House. In the old competitive family spirit, John Kennedy reminded his brother of the same article. "Well," he said to Bob. "There's only one way you can go now down."
9o
CHAPTER SEVEN TEEN:

<f
on the cobblestones. There were motorcycle
outriders, buses
jammed
troops that stretched for block after dark block. Cargo trucks hurriedly dumped out their rolls of barbed wire, concrete pillars, stone
blocks, picks and shovels. Millions of misery-ridden people were in a huge communist pen. They would stay no other
with the steel-helmeted East
German
way.
The
response from the West was silence. In the
first
hours
no one had any advice. John Kennedy and his government had no plan of action for such an event, despite the sheaves of emergency measures dreamed up for every other crisis. There were not even any meetings about the wall in the White House. Kennedy questioned his top advisers by phone, because he was in Hyannis Port. No one suggested an im mediate move; not even West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt had an idea right then. And our military commanders on
the spot never seriously considered knocking down the w all which stood in East Berlin, beyond their rightful territory. 2
T
The city had been divided for fifteen years, the communists had maintained an invisible w all until the morning of Au gust 13. As belated cries demanded that we tear down the wall, Kennedy pondered the suggestion briefly. Tear it down to have the communists build it up fifty yards farther back? Practically speaking, the communists had long ago established
r
was a myth:
their right to seal off their part of the city. Free movement free movement was only possible through
designated checkpoints. Kennedy decided that this nation should do nothing about the wall, leaving it to stand as a
momument
system.
to
the failure of East
Germany's communist
President
There were other things
to do.
The
summoned
2 General Bruce C. Clarke, Commander in Chief, U.S. Army, Europe, later wrote of that time: "I have heard it discussed in the press that we should have immediately knocked down the Berlin Wall. I would point out that the wall was not built overnight. It was a long time in forming and completing. It was built on East Berlin territory. Could we have knocked it down without a mili tary reaction on the part of the Soviets that the Allied Garrison in Berlin could not have coped with? History will have to decide this one in the light of future developments. But, I can say that I know of no one in a position of responsibility that recommended that we knock down the Berlin Wall at the time it was being built. Neither General Watson [Major General Albert Wat son II, Berlin commander] nor I ever made such a recommendation or seri-
oush considered
it,"
his lanky
Vice President, Lyndon Johnson, and asked him
American assurances that would not be torn down, the rights that Kennedy considered basic to West Berlin access from West Germany, the freedom of the city's peoples, the right to station our troops there would not be withdrawn. Then he announced that 1,500 troops of the 8th Division would cross East Germany along the Helmstedt-Berlin Auto bahn in armored trucks, in an out-and-out test of the crucial
though the wall
right of access.
to fly to Berlin to give the people
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TROOPS TO BERLIN
WH
tense
eral
o
It
is
Colonel Johns?" asked the President of

tall,
the United States.
turned out he was a
sandy-haired
Texan
with a distinguished combat record and a flair for the dra matic. He became an important figure in some of the most in
moments of John Kennedy's

S.
first
year.
Col. Glover
Johns,
Jr.,
was chosen August 18 by Gen
Bruce C. Clarke, U.S. Army commander in Europe, to lead the American battle group across the no miles of com munist land between West Germany and West Berlin.
This was to be the test of communist threats: if our troops were halted or interferred with to any great degree, it meant
that the sacred right of access
w as being tampered
r
with;
it
could have meant shooting.
Kennedy
studied
it
called for a biography of Colonel Johns. closely, then asked, "He isn't a West Pointer.
He
How
come?"
The
a field
military planners said that Johns
had
a fine record as
commander
in
World War
II.
(Indeed, he authored
a book about his experiences called

St.
The
Clay Pigeons of
Lo.) Since General Clarke did not want to pull troops out of the line on the border facing the communists, he turned to
ist
Johns' 1,500 men, the tioned in Mannheim.
Group, 8th Infantry, sta were They nearly 400 miles away from the entry point at Helmstedt, but they were on the
Battle
Troops to Berlin
Autobahn and could move almost immediately. Back in the White House, tension hung in the corridors like a ground mist before sunup. It had been building since Kennedy and Khrushchev met in Vienna, and if a single day
can be pointed to when the President
felt
the nation was
entering the danger zone, it is August 20, raced those 1 10 miles into West Berlin.
when
the troops
This symbolic reinforcement had been talked about for weeks. When the wall went up it was given new impetus and new danger. The President was apprehensive. Kennedy's strategy in the chess game with Khrushchev was never to trap the Russian, always to give him a way out, never to pro voke him beyond legitimate political bounds. To send a
military mission through the communist hinterland at that were time had some minor overtones of provocation.
We
within our rights, but there was the question of whether the deliberate mission was an unnecessary irritant. The Presi
dent was concerned about the time
it
would take
to get the
battle group up to the jumping-off point. Would this delay be too much of a challenge to the Russians? Could they sit and wait and be expected to do nothing as the battle group marched from Mannheim to Helmstedt, then across their land to Berlin? Access had not yet been interferred with. Kennedy wondered if he was going too far. He reviewed the
and considered the possibility of airlifting the But by this time the plan was too far devel with word of pending troop movement already out, it oped would be worse to back down.
plans again
men
to Berlin.
The
were
to
operation had been planned in detail.
The
trucks
go in
serials,
so as to
move more
easily
and avoid
the "accordion" action that can snarl a long string of vehicles. Also, if trouble developed not all of them would be caught
inside
communist
territory.
General Clarke had been warned of the coming mission by phone from Washington, but the Pentagon became so in volved in itself that the official orders were slow in getting to Heidelberg, Clarke's headquarters. Lieut. Gen. Earle G.
Wheeler, director of the Joint Staff in Washington, called and told Clarke that it was vital that the troops arrive in Ber lin in daylight on Sunday afternoon, August 20. Vice Presi-
ooQ
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN:
dent Johnson, accompanied by former Berlin Commander General Lucius Clay, was to be there to greet them. The af ternoon was to be a spectacle of American force, determina
tion
and
spirit. It
morale in Berlin.
was designed to build the sinking German It was Friday afternoon when Wheeler
talked to Clarke, and Clarke hastily calculated that the bat tle group would have to move out around 6 A.M. on the next
morning, get to Helmstedt by that night, cross the com munist land on Sunday morning. General Clarke pulled Colonel Johns away from a social evening on Friday; he called him into his office about mid night for verbal orders. Clarke had had to bypass the normal
chain of
Division
command
Corps, 8th Infantry because of the shortness of time. With the mission
Seventh Army,
sketched out for him, Johns hurried back to his unit after midnight. About 2:00 A.M. the official orders came in via
Paris.
Events were already beyond them.
his troops, fed them breakfast and assembled in the post theater for orientation about the move ment. They were to be the symbol of the free world, Johns
Johns alerted
them
said.
They were
to pass in review before the
West German
people, Vice President Johnson and General Clay and, really, the world. They might even get into some fighting,
he added. But neither he nor any of the other military men, including General Clarke, really believed that. These men, who had been dealing with the Russians for years, knew them well. When confronted with determination and force, the Russians always backed down, Clarke felt. 1 But to the young administration in Washington, the enemy was not that well known yet By 5:30 A.M. on Saturday, General Clarke was at Mann heim, looking over the battle group, wilich was ready to move out. A group of West Point cadets, attached to the
group
for training, suddenly became a problem. Clarke, re membering his own cadet days and what such an adventure
1 Writing after his retirement. General Clarke even refused to call these hours a time of "crisis," "What we have had in the Berlin situation have been various forms of 'harassment,' he said. "They have not come to the 'crisis' state as I would define a crisis." The farther away from Berlin a person got and the nearer he came to Washington, the graver the situations seemed, he
declared.
Troops
to Berlin
would have meant, took a moment out to make sure that the boys could accompany the convoy. At 6 A.M. the battle group moved onto the Autobahn.
Clarke sent Lieut. Gen. Frederic
Commander, along
to
Corps Helmstedt in his two-car diesel com

J.
all
Brown, the
mand
train,
which had
the latest communications equip
ment. Clarke received hourly reports from Brown and from the moving column; these he relayed to Washington and to General Lauris Norstad, U.S. Commander in Chief in Eu rope, who was in Paris. On Saturday, Clarke's entire com
mand was alerted.

By Saturday the communications channels from the Penta gon had smoothed out and now a flood of instructions came
to Heidelberg
sibly
so
many, in
fact, that
Clarke could not pos
heed them
all.
Every detail for the movement was con
tained in the orders; instructions, for instance, to the

the convoy
men
in
on how
to
dismount and what
to say if they
were
challenged at the checkpoints. Clarke stacked them on his desk and indexed them for ready reference. There was one order, however, that did not come; he waited for it all Satur
day and never did receive
it.
The
missing order was on the
question of ammunition for the troops. The battle group normally carried its ammunition in trucks and did not issue
men. Clarke felt that to ask Washington for instruc tions on this matter would be to invite confusion and delay for an operation already timed to the minute. He ordered the ammunition issued in boxes to all vehicles in the con voy, in each case the ammunition to be under the control of a noncommissioned officer. It was to be broken out only 2 upon order of each march-group commander, On Saturday afternoon General Clarke heard from Bonn that Lyndon Johnson and his party were en route to Ber lin, but that they planned to stay in the city only until 2 P.M. Clarke w as upset, since he could not be absolutely cer tain that his troops would get to Berlin by that time; certainly not all of them would arrive that soon. The climax of this maneuver, it seemed to Clarke, was to be the review of the
it
to the
the battle group arrived safely in Berlin, the ammunition was duti up again and put back into the ammunition trucks, and no body said a word.
fully gathered
When
2AQ
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
troops by Johnson. He called Maj. Gen. Watson in Berlin and asked that his feelings be made known to Ambassador Walter Bowling and to Johnson.
About
7 P.M. Saturday, Clarke picked
the cool voice of
through. 'I've
President's
that
McGeorge Bundy gotten word you're
in the
up his phone, and White House came

with the Vice Bundy. Clarke said
dissatisfied
program he was, indeed. "It would be the greatest mistake you could make after all this," he added. The movement of the troops had now captured the attention of all Europe and
for tomorrow," said
much
all
of the world. Clarke felt that Johnson should greet
1,500
I can do/* said the laconic Bundy. Clarke turned back to keeping tabs on the convoy now gathering at Helmstedt, where they would bivouac at an airfield for the
"I'll see
men. what
night, pushing off at 6 A.M. Sunday.
Everything was now on hair-trigger alert. Clarke could communicate with general Norstad in an instant should his or Kennedy's word be needed. Instructions for the other forces in Europe w ere fresh. Norstad had plans for air and ground in case of no matter how limited or unlim support fighting,
T
ited.
staff
In the White House concern deepened. One White House member later declared, "It w as a much greater crisis than people know. Talking to Kennedy then was like talk
r
ing to a statue. There was the feeling that this mission could very well escalate into shooting before morning."
As
the fateful Sunday
morning approached
in
Germany,
Saturday night approached in Washington. Normally nedy climbed aboard Air Force One and flew off to
Ken
Cape
Cod and
a week end of sun and water.
Not
so this night.
*T11 never forget that General Marshall couldn't explain
where he was on Pearl Harbor Day," one of the President's aides told Kennedy. "We shouldn't declare war from Hyannis Port."
Military Aide
stay
if
Ted
up
all
night at the
Clifton was given the assignment to White House to notify the President
anything should happen. Clifton scurried to double and triple check all channels of communication.
Since the restless
Kennedy had decided
that he
wanted
to
Troops to Berlin
9/f
see a
night, his aides scoured the town but could a mediocre western, the title of which has now only produce
movie that
been forgotten. Kennedy lasted through about half of it; then, bored and still filled with unrelieved worry, he got up and left.
P.M. Kennedy called Clifton for a rundown. had developed so far. The President went to bed near midnight. He was up at 8 on Sunday morning and de manded news. There was news, and it was good. The first contingent of the armored column had entered the Auto bahn leading to the Berlin gate and had passed through Helmstedt without trouble; the rest of the troops followed unhampered. Slowly the tension eased and Kennedy flew
About 10:30
No trouble
to
Hyannis Port.
In Berlin, Lyndon Johnson and General Clay not only greeted Colonel Johns and his troops, but they stayed until
every man had passed unharmed from the communist cor ridor into West Berlin. It was near 8 P.M. when the final
group went by the checkpoint. For Johnson and his party it had been an extremely moving day. Hundreds of thousands
West Berliners had come out to greet him and the battle group. To Berlin's House of Representatives the Vice Presi dent had cried, "This is the time for confidence, for poise, and for faith for faith in ourselves. It is also a time for
of
faith in
your
allies,
everywhere throughout the world. This
island does not stand alone." This was the tonic Berlin
needed.
the end of the grim days which some times across the country brought a tinge of real fear to the
It
r
w as
not,
by
far,
people as they tried to understand events. But it was an other clear showing of commitment to freedom, something that Khrushchev understood.
There w ere
r
still
more
surprises
from the Kremlin, how
August 30, as the Soviet radio was droning out a government long communique, the message suddenly be came clear: it held the shattering news that the Russians planned to renew nuclear testing. "The United States," went the gray voice, "and its allies are fanning up the arms race preparing a new world holocaust while the Soviet govever.
.
.
On
2A9
ernment
duty
strives for peace.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The
Soviet
.
Union
."
considers
it its
to take all necessary measures.
Just forty-nine hours later a great fireball rose over the central plains of Asia. Khrushchev's cocky predictions that
the United States
the Soviet
would first resume Union would not resume
testing, his
vows that
unilateral testing, lay
in shambles.
Khrushchev characteristically could not have cared less about his word. He began immediately to bully. "The Soviet government has been compelled to take this step under the pressure of the policy of leading NATO powers/' he shouted. "This aggressive bloc leaves the Soviet Union no other
choice."
To make certain
more
talk
that the
of
world understood what was
afoot,
Moscow about the loo-megaton bomb, size times the the A-bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. of 5,000 No one anywhere was safe from this monster. "No superdeep
came out
shelter can save
them from an
all-shattering
blow from
this
weapon," said the Russian.

first announcement of the intention to resume test had been ing picked up by the United States' huge and sen sitive ears that surround the Soviet Union. An alert operator in the Middle East had heard it and flashed it to the United
Tass's
States.
When
it
clattered in over the supersecret teletypes in the
White House, John Kennedy was speeding to a press confer ence in the New State Department Auditorium. Back in his office at 4:50 that afternoon, he was talking to his staff when
McGeorge Bundy walked through the door with yellow pa per that bore the message, by then verified by the Central
Intelligence Agency.
nounced
two hours before the Soviet Union officially an it would resume testing. But Kennedy began to plan. He met with Dean Rusk, Allen Dulles and Bundy. He was puzzled, as were the others, about why the Soviet Union had taken the step. It was a vast propaganda defeat
It
was
still
that
for the Russians.
But one thing was

later:
clear to
the United States
Kennedy, as he related to me would also have to resume nuclear
Troops
to Berlin
testing. For the time being, in answer to Russia, Kennedy decided to resume only underground testing, but it was al most as certain as he sent out the orders for the under
ground
tests that
before
many months we would have
to test
in the atmosphere.
when
reached these conclusions instantly the news came. Details and timing remained to be
out, but there was only the slightest
He
worked
doubt about the
eventuality. In all his decisions
John Kennedy
is
governed by
logic.
And
the logic which pointed out the inevitability of the re sumption of our test program on a major scale was quite could not afford, despite our commanding nuclear clear.
We
lead, to let the Russians test
and
test
ow n
T
steps.
Sooner or
later the Soviets
without taking our would overtake us.
Kennedy's
r
own
dealings with the Soviets had conditioned
him to the very real fact that a test agreement was remote. There w as in reality only one conclusion, and Kennedy's mind raced to it the nuclear-testing race was on again. There was no immediate announcement of his conclusions.
Kennedy quietly ordered the Atomic Energy Commission and the Pentagon to get ready for underground tests at the Nevada test side. But he did not even plan to make that announcement then. Instead, he planned to wait until the Russians had begun their own tests, so that in the next few days the Soviet Union would have a chance to reap all the un favorable world opinion. His first statement on August 30 about the Russian inten tions said: "The Soviet government's decision to resume nu
clear-weapons testing presents a threat to the entire world by increasing the dangers of a thermonuclear holocaust.
.
.
moratorium on nuclear testing by The the Soviet unilateral decision leaves the United States under the necessity of deciding what its own national interests re Ambassador Arthur Dean quire. Under these circumstances, Geneva/' from is recalled immediately being
termination of the
the following morning Kennedy summoned his Na tional Security Council, key aides and the congressional lead ers for a thorough briefing. At noon the White House issued
On
another statement calling the Russian announcement "atomic

blackmail."
2/tA
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
The Senate howled for the resumption of our own testing, but Kennedy kept quiet so that die wwld fury would all be
directed at the Russians.
On
Friday there were meetings at the
White House with
test-ban negotiator Arthur Dean, who had arrived back in this country. Dean charged that the Soviet Union rested its
terrorization of humanity. But the Soviet gov he continued, "underestimates the people of the ernment," world if it thinks they will capitulate to a strategy of black
policy
on "the
mail and terror."
There were more briefings for the congressional leaders. This was a delicate matter. Kennedy wanted to keep any panic from developing; the leaders were assured again and again of our commanding nuclear strength.
On Friday afternoon the predicted message came in: the Russians had set off their first bomb. Kennedy accepted the news calmly, and the \Vhite House made the announcement
John Kennedy was on board his jet headed for another Cape Cod week end. There was nothing more that could be done just then. At the Cape he leisurely loaded eighteen of the clan's children on his elec tric golf cart and bumped off to the candy store. Already in Moscow w as another appeal to Khrushchev. Kennedy had wanted to make a final plea to halt the tests. He had sought and received British Prime Minister Harold
to
the world. Fifty minutes later
Macmillan's endorsement.
States
"The
President of the United
and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom pro to Chairman Khrushchev that their three governments pose
agree, effective immediately, not to conduct nuclear tests which take place in the atmosphere and produce radioactive
fallout.
.
."
There came
radioed to him.
the
a second Russian explosion.

r
cruising in his father's
Kennedy w as w hen the new s was yacht "Marlin"

r r
The "Marlin" curved toward
shore through
choppy blue waters of Nantucket Sound. In his house Kennedy said to a waiting aide, "Get Dean Rusk on the phone. Get my brother."
Again the feeling predominated that Kennedy should wait a little more before making an announcement about
his plans for
resuming underground
tests.
Troops
to Berlin
Back in Washington the following day he called in the AEC's Glenn Seaborg and Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell Gilpatric to talk over the preparations for the American underground tests. Only a few minutes after they had left Kennedy's office, McGeorge Bundy was at the door with word that a third Russian blast had been detected by the
United States monitoring system.
known.
Kennedy decided instantly to make his own intentions He picked up the phone and called Dean Rusk to tell him so. He summoned legislative liaison man Larry O'Brien and asked him to be sure to brief the congressional
leaders of both parties. In an hour the statement was ready: "In view of the continued testing by the Soviet government, I have today ordered the resumption of nuclear tests, in the
laboratory and underground, with no fallout." "I had no choice," said Kennedy privately later. "I
r
had
waited two days for an answ er to the message that Macmillan and I sent to Khrushchev. That was plenty of time. All
they did was shoot
off
two more bombs/'
The New
firm
and
Frontier's steps appeared to have been wise the country began to feel better. The tension
and
still
but the leader of the free world seemed to have a better idea of what he was about. Probably only Nikita Khrushchev knows how close we were to war, since this nation would never have initiated
existed,
But looking back months later, Bob Ken could say sincerely, "We felt war was very possible nedy
a
critical action.
then."
It had been Bob who had sat one night late in the White House with his brother and talked about Berlin. The two Kennedys had discussed all the details, all the possibilities. John Kennedy had been more somber than ever. All his days had been spent planning the steps up to and into a nuclear
war, should
it
be required of
this country.
On
that night as
they talked, there was the eerie realization that war could be the product of a whim, a misunderstanding, a human mis
President looked at his brother. "It really doesn't matter as far as you and I are concerned/' he said. "What
take.
The
really matters are all the children." But this kind of reflection at that time or at
any time, was
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
rare.
The Kennedys
did not brood.
And
seconds after
mak
ing the above statement, the President began to plan what civil-defense steps should be taken. Distress simply was not a condition allowed to exist long in the Kennedy household. He had learned to live normally in the midst of crisis. In an
latest
instant he could shift his thoughts from nuclear war to the home-talent production of the twenty or so children
who
inhabited the Kennedy
compound
at
Hyannis Port dur
ing the summer.
He
lounged
late in his
Hyannis Port bedroom one morn
ing and told While he
a visitor, "It all depends
now on
the Russians."
climbed about the communists and talked with relish about antiques for the White House. In Washington he glanced over his two poached eggs at his weekly breakfast for the Democratic congressional lead ers and said matter-of-factly, "We had no alternative but to
go forward with nuclear
testing."
talked, Jackie sat next to him and John, Jr., across his feet; then the President suddenly forgot
took pride in the fact that he had trimmed off ten pounds. Swimming in the pool with Dave Powers, he would
dig in hard to strengthen his back muscles. He set his mind adrift, too. "I wonder," he asked Powers one day, "if Maris
He
or Mantle will break Babe Ruth's home-run record?"
With a
foot propped in his chair,
straight in the eye Berlin we'll fight."
and
said,
"There
he looked a reporter is no question about
he was told that the millionth tourist of his regime was due to go through the White House, he joked, "Will he be a Cuban or a freedom rider or a woman in shorts?" (It was none of these. It was the very attractive Mrs. Edith Sprayberry, a schoolteacher from Rome, Georgia, selected,
of course, with
When
more thought
to
appearance and background
than to precise numerical order.)
In Berlin, on order of the President, General Lucius Clay poked and prodded the communist wall. A war of creden
Busloads of touring GFs were sent into East Ber lin to make sure the gate stayed open. American helicopters
tials flared.
watched the wall. Armed troops leered across at each other
Troops
to Berlin
and tanks roamed the

starting.
intersections to prevent trouble
from
John Kennedy ordered up the movies Tiger Bay and Expresso Bongo. He reread Alfred Duff Cooper's Talleyrand and told friends, "It's a great book." Early one afternoon a small puff of sand appeared over
Rainer Mesa and Kennedy, in Washington, announced that the United States had reluctantly completed its first nu
clear-weapons test in nearly three years. He stood up one night at a family dinner on the Cape and sang as if he were still a Harvard undergraduate, a simple
sincere strain of "September Song/' It came out in reedy tones that brought a tear or two from his sisters.
He
and
its
flew off to Fort Bragg to review the Army's fire power new training program for guerrilla warfare, his spec
ial project.
He
personally ordered the Special Forces to re

their green berets,
sume wearing
which had been taken
awây by Pentagon brass. "I like those berets," he said.

Special Forces need something to father even wears one now." "I
"The
make them
distinctive.
My
of problems when I came into office," he told his family once in a light mood. "But w ait until the fel low who follows me sees what he will inherit."
had plenty
buzzed by a
Just twelve minutes after the first United States plane was Red fighter in the Berlin air corridors, Kennedy
had received the news. "What are the instructions given to the Pan Am pilots?" he asked, nodded his approval when he
heard. "Was it deliberate? Were What do we do next time?"
the Russian planes lost?
it was the seventeenth he watched flail hole, and away in a sandtrap until he Jackie could not watch another time while the ball fell back at her feet. "Open the face of the club, follow through," he called
On
the Hyannis Port golf course
me show you," he said finally, taking a gave couple of professional-looking practice swings, raised the club in a graceful arc, then brought it down smoothly and powerfully. The ball rose twx> feet, drib
from
his golf cart. "Let
the club.
He
bled back into the sand. Kennedy looked
handed the club back

it."
to Jackie, said, "See, that's
down calmly, how you do
9/<
&
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
pondered the action of the neutral-nations meeting in Belgrade, which poured more criticism on the United States than it did on Russia over the breach of the nuclear-testing moratorium. It was incomprehensible to Kennedy that these nations could have watched Russia resume tests, for which she secretly prepared for months while professing a desire for a test ban, and still find the United States equally guilty for the new round in the nuclear race. He was irritated by a visit from Indonesia's President Sukarno and Mali's Presi dent Keita, who hurried to Washington from Belgrade with a message urging the United States not to take any stand which might provoke war. One close aide to Kennedy watched him and declared that he had broken through the ''sound barrier" of his job. In the early days of his administration he had often seemed almost afraid to discuss the thought of nuclear war. Now he had come to live with it, minute by minute.
He
But trouble
that
found
its
way back
to
Kennedy was not
limited to Berlin or to Laos or to the high reaches of the at mosphere, where new accumulations of fallout were drifting.
On
of the
the night of September 17, a Sunday, in the loneliness White House's international-situation room, a map-
lined chamber in the basement of the east wing, Walt Rostow, deputy special assistant to the President, kept a
sharp eye on the
German
election reports
coming
in
from the
State Department. Kennedy had a keen interest in them, and he had asked to be kept up to date. He had flown to Hyannis Port as usual for the week end, and Rostow was the duty of
ficer
vital
assigned to scan the reports as they came in and send the ones on to the communications room in the basement of
Hyannis' Yachtsman Hotel. Rostow was also watching, but with somewhat
diate interest, the progress of kept in close cable contact with the
imme Dag Hammarskjold, who had

less
ing his moves in the Congo, where bloody fighting again flared up in the continuing war between Katanga, which
United States concern had had seceded from the Congo Central government, and the UN troops, which, through Hammarskjold's insistence, were at tempting to force Katanga back into the Central government.
Troops
to Berlin
2AQ
brief message that Hammarwas overdue in Xdola. There was no cause for skjold's plane Rostow and did not worry. Yet just a bit of uneasiness alarm,
Over the wire came the
crept into the night.

to
Rostow decided
to call this information
Hyannis along with some other intelligence. Air Force Aide Col. Godfrey McHugh was the briefing of ficer for this week end. It was after 9 P.M. on Sunday when he got the short message from Rostow. Being an Air Force of ficer, McHugh worried more than Rostow. For many an Air Force man such short notices had been the start of an obitu ary. McHugh decided to drive the two miles to the Presi dent's home and give him a short briefing, including the late
returns
on the German
election.
through the
clear, cool night,
The Air Force officer sped was waved on at the white po

Kennedy
drive.
lice pillboxes that
guarded the Hyannis Port neighborhood
and crunched
to a halt in the
The
President
was alone with his family, McHugh told Kennedy imme diately about the Hammarskjold item. The presidential eyes
shot
that
McHugh a quick, piercing look. The same uneasiness had first pervaded the White House basement minutes before had been transferred to the brightly lighted Kennedy
In Washington more messages began to trickle in on
living room.
Ham
marskjold, and they were all negative. His plane had not landed, it was long overdue. Three more times that evening McHugh scurried out to Kennedy's home with scraps of in
telligence,
though nothing was conclusive. But
all
the
men
now had
the gnawing sensation that here was for the world.
more trouble
left his
"Keep me
advised/' said the President as
McHugh
home for the last time that night.

In Washington, Rostow gave up the vigil in the early morning, went home for a few hours of needed sleep, then
hurried back at 7 A.M. What he had feared stood all but confirmed. Hammarskjold was now more than twenty hours
overdue. Searches were being organized to look for his plane.
Rostow
ate his breakfast in the situation
room
as
he worked
over the cables.
In Hyannis,
McHugh
gathered the cables from Rostow

to the
and drove back down the misty Cape roads
compound.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
He
arrived before the President was up.

to
President awoke and called to
room, and
McHugh McHugh gave him the glum news.

happened
at a
At 7:30 A.M. the come to his bed
worse time," said the President as he hurried back to Washington on his jet. The
"It couldn't have
word had not
yet come that Hammarskjold was dead, but there was only a slim hope that he was alive. News Secretary Pierre Salinger first spotted the flash over the Reuters wire that Hammarskj old's plane had been found
that the
off,
and
UN
General Secretary was dead.

office,
He
tore the
bulletin
rushed into the President's
handed the
it
ragged piece of paper to Kennedy.

glance and stood
for a silent
The
President read
in a
moment, shook his head, then
turned back to his desk.
Again the Soviet Union had an advantage. The Russian

tirade against the United Nations had reached fever pitch during the summer. They had not only demanded a threeheaded directorate (Troika), but had also wanted to fire
Hammarskjold and had hinted that they might walk out of

the United Nations entirely. In short, they wanted to wreck the United Nations which, under Hammarskjold, was wreck
ing some of their plans.
was due to open the fol lowing week. Kennedy had debated whether he should ad dress the assembly, which was so sorely beset. Hammarsixteenth General Assembly
skjold's death decided
The
him.
He would go
to
New York.
Kennedy stood before the General Assembly and, with warmth, restraint and eloquence, paid tribute to Dag
Ham
marskjold.
"We meet
marskjold
is
is
in an hour of grief and challenge. Dag dead. But the United Nations lives. His tragedy
Ham
deep in our hearts but the task for which he died is at the top of our agenda. A noble servant of peace is gone. But the
quest for peace lies before us. "So let us here resolve that
live,
Dag Hammarskjold did not
or die, in vain. Let us call a truce to terror. Let us invoke the blessings of peace. And, as we build an international ca
pacity to keep peace, let us join in dismantling the national capacity to wage war."
Once again he sketched
the United States position
on the
Troops
to Berlin
Ô 1
or
problems of the world, ending with a moving plea. "Ladies and gentlemen of this Assembly, the decision is ours. Never have the nations of the world had so much to lose, or so much
to gain. Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can and save it we must
and then
as
shall
we
earn the eternal thanks of
mankind and, Dean
peacemakers, the eternal blessing of God." In the meantime, backstage in the United Nations,
cat
and mouse as they sought out each other without appearing to do just that, in an effort to talk about Berlin, to see if some compro mise could not be reached. The evident desire of the Rus sians to talk hinted at one deep and satisfying development: The tension over Berlin was beginning to dissolve slowly, ever so slowly, but it was going.
Rusk and Andrei Gromyko played diplomatic
CHAPTER NINETEEN
REST IN
NEWPORT
TH
at the
E President of the United States can never genu
inely take a vacation. The White followers tag along with him. He
insistent cables
end of those
House and its camp must remain always from around the world.
Washington.
The Secret Service men must always prowl nearby.

But the President can
at least leave
He
can
hide himself away from the public and see other people be sides politicians. This, however, it not as easy as it seems, even on vacation.
good-bye in a series of
Kennedy bid Congress White House coffee hours. He was perhaps too easy with his praise for a Congress which passed 172 of his 355 requests. But they had come through with thirty-three important pieces of legislation (by New Fron
of September,
Towards the end
not a bad showing for a President who won his election by two tenths of one per cent. Then he headed for Newport, Rhode Island, for some un
tier
count)
interrupted time
off.
Naturally, before he could stretch out

7
on the vast lawn of Jackie's parents home, Hammersmith Farm, which looks out over Narragansett Bay, he had to wade
through the remaining business. On his jet flight from New York to Newport, following his United Nations speech, he signed ninety bills, part of
those which the Congress had passed in its last gasp. He also appointed William Foster director of the new disarmament
agency.
Rest in Newport
If Kennedy had ideas of sneaking into the gray mansion of Hammersmith Farm and starting his vacation in a low key, he forgot them as he landed at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. It is not possible for a President to arrive unnoticed. Tied up
at the
Navy pier was the aircraft carrier Lake Champlain, its entire crew in blues, manning the rail in silent tribute to
their
late,
Commander
but the
in Chief.
Kennedy was an hour and a
half
sailors stayed at their posts in the go-degree heat.
twenty-one-gun salute greeted the presidential plane,
which blew out a tire on landing, thus causing the wires to hum with an exciting little story, Kennedy was unaware of the blowout until he was told of it after he left the plane, al though five crash trucks had streaked down the runway after the plane, which pilot James Swindal wisely let coast to a stop so as not to endanger the other tire on the left landing gear. There were 2,500 people to greet the Kennedys at the air station. A Navy band blared "Hail to the Chief as the Presi dent shook endless hands, including those of Rhode Island Governor John A. Notte and his wife, not to mention Mrs.
'
Claiborne Pell, wife of the Rhode Island senator, plus as sorted lesser politicians. Nor did Kennedy escape the cere monial function of trooping the line, this line consisting of a
thirty-five-man Marine honor guard. Finally the presidential couple boarded a helicopter lifted up over the bay for Hammersmith. But ceremony
and
was
not over yet.
Newport Mayor James
L. Maher, his wife,
Newport Po
lice Chief Joseph A. Radice and Police Capt. Arthur S. Maloney lined up on the grounds of Hammersmith in wait for
the helicopter.
Caroline raced down into her father's arms, and he picked her up and carried her to the house. It looked for a moment as if there would be ease at last. Just then the local delegation
of greeters
moved in. Mayor Maher pressed
onto both Kennedys.
He
also
honorary-citizenship certificates brought them a couple of sou
venir plaques. Not stopping at that, Maher produced a guest book which, he slyly suggested, he would leave for the Presi dent and Mrs. Kennedy to sign, "when they wanted to," This
is
an old dodge, an excuse for another interview. Kennedy
CHAPTER NINETEEN:
grabbed the book and signed on the
spot, giving Newport one of his usually unidentifiable signatures. ('The only reason I
know it is his was I saw him do it," said Maher later.) The good mayor was not finished, however. He asked if the President might not make some kind of public appear
ance or
at least
allow the city-council boys to come around
and
rest,
say hello.
smiled, reminded the mayor that he had come to then quickly said to Maher, "You say hello to the council for me." With that he took Caroline by the hand and went
Kennedy
into the house.
The
ties of
logistics of
somewhat
a presidential vacation can be compared to those of a minor military invasion. Vast
quanti
moved by land, air and sea. As Kennedy was parrying the thrusts of Mayor Maher, three Navy boats with the hundred or so assorted White House
be
men and machines must
newsmen,
broadcasters, Secret Service
men, communications
stenographers and other staff members were plowing through the rolling waters of the bay for the Naval War College, which xvould be the functioning White House
technicians,
headquarters.
The Navy had spiffed

looked one tiny detail:
trait still
offices.
everything up, but as usual had over
D wight Eisenhower's big,
smiling por
staff
hung
in the hall right outside the
temporary
Overnight Eisenhower came
down and Kennedy went
up. All the town's facilities were lined

case he
up
for the President in
wanted them. He could play golf at the Newport Country Club for free. The course was just across the road from the green pastures of Hammersmith. (The Auchinclosses were in at the The heated swimming Europe time.) pool of Mrs. Robert R. Young at her mansion, Fairholme, on the other side of the exclusive island, was ready for the presi
dential exercise period, should the President
want
it.
He
could use the swank private Bailey's Beach, and he could in vade the sacred premises of the Club and the Clam
Reading
bake Club.
The
Secret Service had been over the farmhouse

its
and
was
staked out
guards.
direct
White House phone
line
Rest in Newport
put in the den. Marine helicopters had dutifully flown in Kennedy's special mattress and backboard from Hyannis Port, so that the presidential back would have its customary
support. At the naval base the huge network of teletypes and West ern Union wires for the press and for the White House staff
were working again.

Fitz,"
The
President's yacht,
the
"Honey
had plowed up the
coast
from Annapolis and now lay at
anchor awaiting Kennedy's pleasure. Newport Police Captain Maloney had done handsomely. "No Parking" signs lined Ocean Drive along the borders of Hammersmith. A cop with a loud-speaker in his car shooed
gawkers along their way if they decided to loiter. In the windows of Newport stores hundreds of blue-andwhite stickers proclaimed, "Welcome, President Kennedy/'
United States
flags
hung from
staffs
in further tribute to the
Chief Executive.
Thus
the President of the United States started a vacation.
The
President put on slacks and sports
shirt, sat
in the
little by little was forgotten. Only a dutiful trio in the press launch with a handsome new "White House Press" flag flying from amidships and a few curious pleasure boats trailed the "Honey Fitz" on his lunch
marvelous Newport sun and
eon
cruises.
Only twice in a week did Kennedy have to break stride. Once he came out of hiding to name John McCone the new Central Intelligence head and to pay tribute to the retiring Allen Dulles. Another time, for reasons that only a Massa
chusetts politician could fathom, Kennedy swore in Peter W. Princi (Winthrop, Massachusetts) as collector of cus
toms for Massachusetts. The ceremony w as on Hammersmith grounds, and for a moment it looked as if it might get out of hand. Princi brought with him his wife, five children, seven teen other relatives and three selectmen from Winthrop.
r
Kennedy performed
his
duty and then, with the help of the
Secret Service, cleared the grounds again. The "Honey Fitz" slid out into the blue water of the bay, soothing strains of semiclassical music coming from the loud
speakers. Caroline
romped over
the decks of the ninety-two-
r>
CHAPTER NINETEEN:
foot yacht as Jackie snapped pictures. Caroline liked the sailors, and she engaged them in earnest conversation.
Lieutenant
Commander Walter
Slye, a
former riverboat cap
water-jet The small Service Secret with cruised guards. speedboats boats could go forty-five miles per hour and they w ere used to
r
tain, ship's genial commander. Beside the "Honey Fitz," two black-and-white
was the
warn
off insistent sight-seers, to take
Caroline and her friends
to the beaches to play while the adults ate lunch and, of course, to tow Jackie on water skis.
The "Honey
Fitz"
moved up
the bay,
its
blue-and-white
presidential standard, which denotes the presence of the Chief Executive, snapping in the breeze. Jackie put on a blue bathing suit, tugged on a blue stvim cap and the top part of a black rubber skin-diving outfit. She called to one of the Secret Service boats, clambered
down
the ladder on the side
of
"Honey
Fitz" into the little boat.
short
Y
w ay from
T r
the
yacht she slid into the water, and then she w as up on a single water ski, gracefully slaloming. After a few minutes she
dropped the towline, swam

for lunch.
to the
"Honey
Fitz"
and changed
r press boat lolled about 100 yards aw ay w hile reporters watched wr ith binoculars, an established ritual that every
The
President had to endure.
back through her

first
Once when Jackie was seen looking own powerful glasses, the correspondents
framed a facetious note and sent
it to Salinger, protesting the of their invasion family's privacy. One day as the "Honey Fitz" lay at anchor in the bay, the
after exercises at sea.
big gray hulk of the frigate "Willis A. Lee" came slowly by Through the "Honey Fitz" radio the
if
1
she could stop to allow him to look her over. Within ten minutes of getting the request, the frigate's President asked
commander, A. W. Cox, had turned out

rail.
his 225
men on
the
The "Honey
Fitz"
poured on
r
all
of
its
eleven knots and
passed by the towering ship, w hich is twice the size of a nor mal destroyer. Jackie held Caroline and pointed out the spec tacle. The President of the United States stood on the fantail
and gave the crew a big wave.
Rest in Newport
Navy tradition, when two ships meet, the junior commander must ask permission to "proceed on as signed duty." Cox dutifully radioed and got, not only permis
According
to
sion to proceed, but also a special
Kennedy
thanks.
Even the world seemed to co-operate for Kennedy that week. It stayed in apprehensive but sustained calm. Dag
Hammarskjold was buried in Uppsala, Sweden, the city in which he grew up. Dean Rusk caught up with Gromyko, in vited him to lunch to talk about solving the Berlin crisis. And Richard Nixon announced that he would be a candidate for
the governorship of California.
Kennedy pursued his newspapers as either at Hammersmith Farm or on
diligently as ever, the fantail of the
every day he was given a briefing on the supersecret intelligence reports that are prepared for him no matter where he is or what he is going.
"Honey
Fitz."
And
There was more sun
for the President,
more water
skiing
for Jackie, and one day the crew of the "Honey Fitz" affixed an array of colorful balloons to the railing of the boat as a
who was
Ivan Steers, special tribute to Caroline and her little cousin, also staying at Hammersmith and who had become
a regular passenger. As the week went by, the White studied the characters in the daily
Fitz."
House correspondents drama of the "Honey
John Kennedy, as the head of the floating court, sat in his deep brown leather chair which is bolted to the boat's deck and talked, listened and read the newspapers. Jackie was the persistent athlete, off on the waves on her
water skis despite the chilly water.
"Washington
artist
and friend
Bill
Walton seemed
to
be a
budding Cecil B. deMille, appearing constantly with a movie camera and grinding out endless footage on the President. Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., stood on deck like an old sea dog,
surveying the water. And Caroline continued to
flirt
with the
sailors,
often
sit
ting with her legs dangling over the
side, eating
an apple and
to
peering
up at the young men in spotless whites. Then the week was over. It was time for Kennedy
hurry
25 8
back to Washington to find out what Dean Rusk had learned about Berlin from Andrei Gromyko.
Despite all the hazards of being President, Kennedy found as he departed that it had been a restful week. 'It's the best
vacation I've had in two years/ he told his
7
staff.
CHAPTER
W E NT Y
GROWING
CONFIDENCE
spirits of John Kennedy were reflected in and his mood manner as midautumn came and faded. When he drove to the Statler-Hilton Hotel for a luncheon to observe the publication of the first four volumes of the papers of President John Adams and his descendants, he turned to Adams* great-great-great-grandson, Thomas Adams, and said, "It is a pleasure to live in your family's old house, and we hope that you will come by and see us." Walking from his helicopter to his office on the White House's south lawn, he noted the abundance of crab grass and demanded that it be done away with.
TH
E rising
To
to
aides he declared in loud firm tones,
"The budget
has
be balanced."
And with
that challenge
he dove into a care
budget requests. slipped away from the White House totally unnoticed and drove to St. Matthews Church. It was National Prayer Day and Kennedy, undetected, sat in a dark rear
ful review of
One noon he
pew.
of
To many who had

seemed
crisis, it
that his
ence in his talks to
watched him through nine months church attendance and the refer and prayer had become less mechanical
more meaningful. While the world series was being played, Kennedy did what most other Americans did: he flopped in front of a TV set and watched. He became so engrossed in the opening game that he called his staff to come to his room for a meet
ing, so that
he could
see the final innings.
CHAPTER TWENTY:
the White House to watch which would create a commission to study plans for a memorial for her husband. "I w ant you to move closer," said Kennedy when the photographers ap
Mrs.
Woodrow Wilson came by

bill
the President sign the
peared. He helped the frail lady slide over. He handed her the first pen he used, and she beamed, "Thank you. I didn't dare ask for it."
"I hope," said Kennedy, turning to his visitor and those of her family, "that the commission will plan a memorial that
expresses the faith in democracy vision of peace and a dedication
and President Wilson's to international under
standing that President Wilson himself did so ." advance.

.
.
much
to
The presidential temper was working, too. Spying a New York Herald Tribune story about his short talk at the Adams
papers luncheon, the President erupted. He did not like the lead of the story, which had picked up a remark the Presi dent had made that both he and Adams had spent a good
days away from the White House. Kennedy's displeas ure was relayed to Salinger, who called in the offending re porter, David Wise, who had just returned from a month's vacation in Europe. "This is a hatchet job/' said Salinger.
many
are concerned, we'll send you back to Europe month." For visiting Sudan head General Ferik Ibrahim Abboud there were Shakespeare excerpts in the East Room, the first time the bard had invaded the White House. Two represent atives from the Winchester Company measured Abboud for
far as
"As
we
for another
new high-powered hunting rifle, a gift from the President, who chuckled appreciatively when Abboud asked, "Do you know what the most dangerous wild animal is? The buffalo;
a
he thinks."
Sadness entered
Sarn
official
life
with the news that Speaker
Rayburn lay dying of cancer in Texas. "I have learned with deep sorrow of the serious illness of my friend, Speaker
Sam Rayburn
sued.
."
began the statement the President
is
Though Rusk and Gromyko had not come

ment
in their
to
any
settle
New York
talk, the Russians
had
at least
shown
Growing Confidence
a willingness to talk. From Moscow the rumblings of Khru shchev had stilled somewhat, and gentle feelers came, seek
ing to find out what the United States wanted to do about
Berlin.
Kennedy decided to talk it over with Andrei Gromyko, and once again the Soviet Foreign Minister flew down from
New York. On a Friday evening Gromyko was led into the
Oval
Room
in the second-floor living quarters of the White House. The autumn sun cast its gold on the turning leaves that could be
seen through the huge windows which frame the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial in the distance.
The
President, in his rocking chair, gestured to a lounge
chair to his right for
Gromyko.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Kennedy isn't here/' said the President. "She's up in Rhode Island with the babies." "Give her my best/' said Gromyko, who was then engulfed
by still photographers.
When
sion's over."
they trooped away, the Russian sighed, "The inva Kennedy fumbled for a cigar, took the paper off
to light
it,
and was preparing
when
the
raphers came at them. "Oh, no," put his cigar away and waited.
cried
wave of movie photog Gromyko. Kennedy
For the
iliar
first
Gromyko droned out
part of the two-hour, seven-minute meeting a tedious memorandum giving the fam
Russian position on Berlin.

T
to talk. He and his aides had sensed that the Russian position w as softening and, in fact, the Soviets seemed to want to talk about Berlin more than the United States did. It was the Kennedy strategy to back away from the idea. So far, Kennedy told the Russian, the Soviet Union had made no acceptable proposals for any possible bargain; until it did, the United States w as not in
Then John Kennedy got a chance
terested in negotiations. the subject of the Russian plan to internationalize Ber lin, in exchange for undefined guarantees of access, Kennedy
On
looked his visitor in the eye. "You have offered to trade us an apple for an orchard. We do not do that in this country."
Kennedy had prepared well for this second encounter with Gromyko. As the meeting ended with a fruitless discussion
ago
on
tions, the President casually
CHAPTER TWENTY:
Russia's impossible Troika concept fr the United Na picked up a book from a nearby
table,
thumbed through
it
until
he found the place he
wanted.
It
Then he silently handed it to Gromyko to read. was a poem by Ivan Andre vich Krylov, taken from a col lection of the Russian's fables published in Moscow. It was called "The Swan, The Pike and The Crayfish/* Gromyko shifted in his chair and read as Kennedy watched him.
When among partners
concord there
is
not,
Successful issues scarce are got And the result is loss, disaster and repining.
A crayfish, swan and pike, combining,

Resolve to draw a cart and freight;
In harness soon, their
efforts ne'er abate.
However much they work,

It
the load to
stir refuses.
seems to be perverse with selfwill vast endowed;

uses;
The swan makes upward for a cloud, The crayfish falls behind, the pike the river
To judge of each
I
one's merits
lies
beyond
my will;
know
the cart remains there,
still.
Gromyko threw back

had been a good
stroke,
his
finished. "Yes/* said the Russian,
head and laughed when Kennedy acknowledging that this "but those are animals. We are talk
ing about people." Light had faded and the stars sprinkled a clear fall night as Gromyko hurried to his car to take Kennedy's message
back to Khrushchev.
"We
touched on several important matters/' Gromyko
blurted to newsmen. "Of course, as far as the position of the Soviet Union is concerned, we stressed first of all the impor
sation
tance of a peace treaty with Germany. is useful."
think that this conver
As Gromyko was caught

he
in the
TV
lights,
Dean Rusk
shouldered through the reporters, unnoticed. In the shadows
summed
is
it
up more
accurately. "It was interesting, but

it."
that
about all you can say about
Growing Confidence
263
to look around his country. was an encouraging sight. Across the United States, 82, ooo reservists and National Guardsmen prepared to answer
Kennedy began
It
Old memories, old fighting names were lips. Bands played for Main Street parades. There were farewell parties, homes broken up in some cases, and jobs quit in others. There was grumbling, but not much. The people w ere answering Kennedy's call of the hour. And the people were like those 10,000 officers and men who made up Wisconsin's gsnd Division which had fought in the Meuse-Argonne during World War I and in the Pacific in World War II: the men of the Red Arrow Division were as
a call to active duty.
back on people's
good
as ever.
President flew to the bedside of Sam Rayburn. When he left the room of Mr. Sam at Baylor University Hospital, he walked down the corridor, head lowered, jaw grimly set. "They don't make them like that any more/' said the Presi dent, breaking the silence. "He has the courage of ten men." Back in Washington, he sat down with his defense chiefs to talk over the military budget. On one manpower figure he looked up, puzzled. It was an adequate strength when the world had peace, his men told him. "We don't have world peace," snapped Kennedy. "Let's be realistic." Deciding that he needed a fresh hard look at the growing trouble in South Vietnam, he dispatched Maxwell Taylor to
The
that country for a realistic report.
out on one mission and found another," wired the general. Sent to study primarily the military problems of the threatened small nation which was being plagued by
r
"We w ent
communist
infiltration,
corruption and the
civil disaster
Taylor reported that the political were of such proportions
that something should be done about these problems before turning to military matters. Six months of hard work were
needed in the country to straighten it out internally before the major question of whether this nation should send troops or not should even be considered, Taylor cabled. Disagreeing with other more pessimistic reports from the area, Taylor felt that we had time in South Vietnam. For President Ngo Dinh Diem's army there was desperate need
CHAPTER TWFNTV:
for radios, helicopters, boats. More training, reorganization of troops in the field and better logistical support were other needs. It was not a happy picture which Taylor drew, but was not hopeless either, as some journalists wrote.
it
The men
more of
of Kennedy's administration began to speak
No
patric,
this country's great strength. better words were spoken than those of Roswell Gil-
who
talked to the Business Council in
Hot
Springs,
Virginia.
"Our
confidence in our ability to deter
communist
based upon a sober appreciation of the relative military power of the two sides. The fact is that this nation has a nuclear retaliatory force of
action, or resist
communist blackmail,
is
such lethal power that an enemy move which brought it into play would be an act of self-destruction on his part. The
United
States has today
hundreds of intercontinental
bomb
Union, including 600 medium more bombers equally bombers and many heavy of our highly because of intercontinental capable operations
ers capable of reaching the Soviet
developed
in-flight refueling techniques. Our carrier strike theater forces could deliver additional land-based forces and
hundreds of megatons. The number of our nuclear delivery vehicles, tactical as well as strategic, is in the tens of thou sands: and, of course, we have more than one w arhead for
r
each vehicle."
This w as the nourishment that the country needed at that

T
time.
man in a baggy gray suit dropped by the White October came to an end. Carl Sandburg, poet, Lin coln scholar, and expert on anything and everything, sat in the Cabinet Room waiting to see the President. "The way he is doing is almost too good to be true/' said Sandburg about Kennedy. "There has never been a more formidable set of
old
as
An
House
historical conditions for a president to face since Lincoln."
One
of the
new
conditions was Russia's monster
bomb.
It
exploded in the Soviet Arctic with a force of

tons, the largest
fifty-eight mega man-made explosive in history. The White House had been prepared for the blast. Ken nedy wanted the new s immediately. When at last it came over the wires, White House aides ran to tell the President.
f
Growing Confidence
2 6 Pi
They could not find him in or around his office. It was Dave Powers who located him: Kennedy was reading a bedtime
story to Caroline.
The hints from
the
New Frontiersmen
that our
own atmos
tests might take place before long came with pheric nuclear Stevenson first sounded off in the United Adlai frequency.
Nations that this nation, in self-protection, might have to

in the air.
test
Then McGeorge Bundy,

is
in a little-noted speech,
test
had
this to say: "It
obvious that massive atmospheric

creates a
ing by the Soviet
Union
new
large explosions like the one last the Soviet series as responsible acts of international outrage,
While very week are senseless and ir

situation.
a whole must be assumed to have military importance." Kennedy left no doubt on November 2. He locked himself
morning meeting of his National Security Council, which that he gave final approval to a statement on nuclear testing with offi brimmed House The White make. was about to President former Harry cials, who rushed in and out. Even
in a
Truman was invited to the Truman cheerily shouted to

to see
meeting. "Get out of my way/' wants reporters. "The President

is
me. I don't know what this is all I know dent said he wanted to see me and here I am."
the Presi
At 12:37 Kennedy entered

before
TV cameras. He was
his office to give the statement at this moment as at any as
grim
nedy
time during his presidency. Without a word he walked to his desk. He sat down and the cameras started to grind, but Ken did not like the small reading platform in front of him.
"Just a
moment," he
said. "J ust
stop taking pictures for a
minute."
He
desk.
lifted the
platform
States
is
off
and
laid his
paper down on his
"The United
it will be the policy of the United States to proceed in developing nuclear weapons to maintain ." No tests, said Kennedy, would this superior capability. the world, as the Russians to undertaken be
.
of nuclear tests being In view of the Soviet action,
series carefully assessing the current Union. Soviet the conducted by

. .
just
frighten
had done, but only to maintain our edge in nuclear tech a matter of prudence, we shall nology. "In the meantime, as
()
CHAPTER TWENTY:
make
necessary preparations for such tests so as to be ready in case it becomes necessary to conduct them."
From then on until April 25, when the first United States shot exploded in the air over the Pacific, Kennedy did not change his course. He did not announce his decision, for he
clung to a thread of hope that some test ban might be worked out with the Russians. Also, there w as no need to harvest world criticism for testing during the months the United States would need to prepare its tests.
still
r
Kennedy was
gruffer with guests,
In a late-evening Alphand he said
more abrupt w ith staff. with French Ambassador Herv meeting he was that growing w eary of bluntly
r
French objections to his efforts to solve the Berlin problem without any French offers of help. Much the same tone he
used with West Germany's Ambassador Wilhelm Grewe. He was tired of the rumors that we would abandon West Berlin;
we would make no
concessions to the Russians at
West Ger
many's expense, nor would we let West he told the German that there was little hope for German re unification as long as Russian troops and the communists con
trolled East
Berlin slip away. Yet
Germany.
One
night he rocked furiously and slapped his thighs,

told
pulled up his socks, obviously feeling in top form physically

a
and mentally. "It's going better," he little headway here and there."
me. "We're making
Why did he not speak out, as Roswell Gilpatric had done about our own power? Kennedy shook his head. "I don't want to get up against Khrushchev like we w ere last year." He took both fists and brought them together as if they were two heads smashing against each other. "I want him to be
r
able to get off the hook in this thing. I don't want to force him into anything. When I get up and say those things it sounds too belligerent."
He
know,
while,
turned to journalism, always a favorite subject. "You editorial writers should all come to Washington for a
and Washington reporters should all get out of Wash ington for a while. That would do more good than anything
1
can think
of.
They just don't understand

There was an
wiiat
the other place.
editorial
is going on in about reciprocal
Growing Confidence
26^7
trade and it said that we might put it off a year because we were afraid it was too tough politically. Now they just don't
know
it
the
facts.
ahead, and
politicians are the ones who want to go the diplomats are the ones xvho want to postpone
The
a year. George Ball over in the State Department says that
the effects of the
common market w on't be known

r
for a year
and it would be better to work out a trade act after we see what that all means. But Larry O'Brien says we'd better go ahead next year because otherwise it might look like we are
afraid.
How can you win?

leaped out of his rocker, walked out of his
office
He
and
grabbed the Washington evening Star. "Look at this/' he cried, thumping a picture of Eisenhower and Truman mak
ing friendly eyes at each other. "Isn't that something?"
With an
Kennedy
flew off to Poteau,
eye on his legislative hopes for the coming year, Oklahoma, to visit Senator Bob
Kerr, emerging as the most powerful single figure in the Sen ate. There, city boy Kennedy sat in the feed lot of Kerr's
ranch and watched prize black Angus cattle parade by. Be side him sat the ranch manager, Dr. Paul Keesee. During the short cattle show Kennedy plied Keesee with questions about
the cattle business.
always beyond his years in politics, the art of mak a living was something wilich multimillionaire Kennedy ing did not fully understand. Having lived in the protection and
Though
comfort of his father's vast fortune, he never experienced the anxieties of a wage earner. Once when asked if he remem
bered anything about the depression, he admitted frankly that it had not interfered in his life. He learned about the de
pression only in history books in school. ence" in Kennedy's life had been the war.
The
"big experi
Sitting on the low platform that had been especially structed for his visit, Kennedy became fascinated by the
con
cow
boys who herded
Kerr's cattle before him.
He
leaned over to
Dr. Keesee and pointed to Arthur Gee, a tanned man with sloping shoulders, thin as a reed and with the look of the
range about him. "I'd like to meet him," he said. "What are the salaries of cowboys?" asked Kennedy. He was told that they amounted to about $200 per month, but
r,
fj
CHAPTER TWENTY:
cowboys got a home and free milk and other side bene fits. Kennedy mulled over the information. "Now, tell me about how cattle are mated/' he said to Keesee. "When do they have calves? How many cows can you
that
breed to a bull each year?" The questions kept coming. Kennedy was in a strange world. Not only were the economics foreign, but he was not one who understood farmers or ranchers. Often during his
campaign days he remarked about the melancholy appear ance of the people he met in the farm states. He found them colder than the miners and factory workers. He wondered if the lonely country life was as good as it was sometimes adver
tised to be.
With Congress
recessed,
for reflection in the
w ith winter coming, White House. And it w as

r
r
it
was a time
a time to as
semble some of these thoughts and to talk about them. In the University of North Carolina's stadium he spoke about living in the gray times of the cold war, when neither total victory nor total defeat was possible. "It is a dangerous illusion to believe that the policies of the United States can be encompassed, stretching as they do worldwide, under
varying and different conditions can be encompassed in one slogan or one adjective, hard or soft or otherwise, or to
believe that
we
shall
soon meet victory or
total defeat.
Peace and freedom do not come cheap, and we are destined, if not all all of us here today, to live out most of our lives
in uncertainty and challenge
and
peril.
."
Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans sun The that Day. morning hung in its IOW fall orbit, sending its light into the hills above the Potomac River, flooding the
to
T
He went
white sepulcher of the unknown soldier from World War I, glancing off the marble slabs that mark the graves of the un-
War II and the Korean War. The peo from ple Washington, in bright fall clothes, streamed up through the rows of small white stones. Across the river the dome of the Capitol and the Washington Monument stood
knoxvns from World
up
boldly.
The
strains of
"America, the Beautiful," played
on the cemetery carillon, aptly described the scene.
Growing Confidence
260
Each of us who follows the President year in and year out has his own moments of special significance. Sometimes they the war threats, the meetings of heads of are the big events state. But sometimes they are little-remembered occasions that do not get headlines, that are forgotten by most people
minutes after they happen. For me, November 1 1, 1961, in Arlington Cemetery was one of those occasions. Perhaps it was the beauty of the day. Per
haps
was the President's wôrds. Perhaps it was just the feeling of strength and peace that I got standing amid our nation's great memories and looking at Washington, the feel ing that once again we had lived in a year of danger and we
it
had emerged wiser and stronger. As John Kennedy entered the cemetery grounds, a gun be gan to boom its melancholy salute. Cars glinted far away on the Potomac bridges, and even the murky water of the river
reflected the blue sky. In silence the President placed a
wreath on the tombs of

to listen to taps, the
the
unknowns, and then he stepped back
haunting tones gliding over the valley back.
and echoing
faintly
turned and strode into the amphitheater. "Today we are here to celebrate and to honor and to com memorate the dead and the living, the young men who in
every war since this country began have given testimony to
their loyalty to their country and their own great cour Bruce Catton, after totaling the casualties which age.
. . .
He
took place in the battle of Antietam, not so very far from this cemetery, when he looked at the statistics which showed that
in the short space of a few minutes whole regiments lost 50 to 75 per cent of their numbers, then wrote that life perhaps
is
not the most precious
gift of all, that
men
died for the pos
session of a
few
all.
feet of a cornfield or a rocky hill or for almost
nothing at
country might
a very larger sense, they died that this be permitted to go on, and that it might per
.
But in
it to be fulfilled, the great hopes of its founders. There is no way to maintain the frontiers of freedom without cost and commitment and risk. There is no swift and easy ." path to peace in our generation.
.
.
mit
CHAPTER TWENTY:
Mr. Sam died, and a saddened John Kennedy flew west to
Sam Taliaferro Rayburn who had been born and reared on the dusty plains of Texas, the son of a Confederate cavalry officer w ho had ridden to Appomattox with Robert E. Lee; Sam Rayburn, who had served in the House of Representatives longer than any man in its history forty-nine years a man who had been speaker for 17 years, more than twice as long as Henry Clay, his nearest competitor, a man who had served with eight presidents. An
say farewell to the Speaker:
r
age was passing away. The young President paid his tribute on a gray, chilly day in Bonham, Texas, but not before he had taken a firmer hold as freedom's leader.
In the University of Washington's

Seattle, the President
Edmundson
Pavilion in
had spoken more optimistically than at time since any assuming office. He had talked back to the critics of the far right who had called Kennedy "soft" and demanded more military bluster in world affairs. And he had
answered those pundits w ho constantly criticized him for not having a grand plan for the direction of the world. In the crimson academic robe of a Harvard LL.B. he had said: "We cannot, a free nation, compete with our adversaries in
r
tactics
of terror,
crises.
.
assassination,
.
.
false
mobs and
We cannot abandon
promises, counterfeit the slow processes
of consulting with our allies to match the swift expediencies of those who merely dictate to their satellites. ... In short,
we must face problems which do not lend themselves to easy or quick or permanent solutions. And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient
that we are only 6 per cent of the world's population that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 per cent of man kind that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each ad
versity
that, therefore, there cannot be an American solution to every world problem. These burdens and frustra tions are accepted by most Americans with maturity and
.
.
.
and
But there are others who cannot bear understanding. the burden of a long twilight struggle. They lack confidence in our long-run capacity to survive and succeed. Hating com
munism,
yet they see
communism
in the long run, perhaps, as
Growing Confidence
9^71
wave of the future. And they want some quick and easy and final and cheap solution now. There are two groups of
the
those frustrated citizens, far apart in their views. ... On the one hand are those who urge upon us what I regard to be
appeasing our enemies, compro our commitments, mising purchasing peace at any price. On the other hand are those who urge upon us what I regard
.
the pathway of surrender
to
be the pathway of war, equating negotiations with ap

.
peasement and substituting rigidity for firmness. side sees only 'hard' and 'soft' nations, hard and soft
hard and
groups
soft
Each
policies,
men. The
essential fact that
both of these
fail to
substitutes for
grasp is that diplomacy and defense are not one another. Either alone would fail. ."
. .
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WAY
OF LIFE
TH
tion for
all
be more than government. It became a way of life, it became Washington's new no better society, it became sensitivity to the arts,
E
to
New Frontier grew
illustrated than through Jackie's
the White House.
riding, swimming, golf, not to mention skiing and hiking
broad program of restora was a vigorous outdoor life of tennis, boating and touch football,
It
and
Softball.
it
became
so vigorous
sometimes that
And, in fact, it was overdone, a step

Hill estate
beyond good
fun.
Bob Kennedy's Hickory
became
headquarters of the cult because of the confining atmosphere of the White House.
Walt Rostow found himself
striding over the
dewy
ten
acres in Virginia as he talked about guerrilla warfare before breakfast. Max Taylor took to the new Hickory Hill tennis
court.
Pierre Salinger
w as unceremoniously
r
tossed in the
Ken
nedy swimming pool as a fitting end to a huge lawn party. Teddy Kennedy dived in on his own accord, just out of sheer
exuberance.
journalist interviewing Bob Kennedy found himself r striding up and do\v n the side of the swimming pool, shout
Bob swam. When one question offended Bob, he simply submerged, swam under water to the other side of the pool, crawled out and stalked off up the hill, leav ing the perplexed newsman standing.
ing his questions as
Secret Service
agent found himself singing nursery
A Way
of Life
rhymes on board the Kennedy

as
it
sailing sloop in Hyannis Port headed, brimming with children, for a picnic on a beach. Don Wilson, the United States Information Agency's deputy director, met a Kennedy tennis challenge in his bare feet. Many a brave man plunged headlong into the rose
bushes on the Hyannis Port lawn to catch a touch football of the Kennedys at Stowe, Vermont, could only pass. Guests if endorsement win they hurtled down near-vertical ski
slopes.
And
those intimate friends
who
vacationed with
Bob
to
and Ethel found that
expect the first The President did his back exercises, carefully prescribed by New York University's Dr. Hans Kraus, on the floor of his
jet plane, in his
5 A.M. was a reasonable time at athletics and there was no curfew.
which
sized
bedroom and occasionally in the pocketWhite House gym. He frequently challenged his chubby Press Secretary to do pushups. He asked his entire staff at one point to lose five pounds each. After seeing some
tough paratroopers at Fort Bragg, he prodded his
own desk
bound military advisers into a fitness course. White House staffers Ted Sorensen and Mike Feldman hurried downtow n in the mornings for a tennis game before w ork. And Under Secretary of the Navy Paul Fay, a personal friend of the President's, became so fitness-conscious that, as he flew around the country for speaking engagements and
r
inspection tours, he took to challenging the young gobs to
pushup
It
contests.
was not athletics alone that demanded such verve. Every activity was to be engaged in at full throttle. When the word spread that John Kennedy read 1,200 words a minute and
read everything in
sight,
White House
staffers enrolled in
speed reading courses, even set
up
a special class in the
White
House. Ian Fleming's mystery books were devoured, as were such other Kennedy favorites as Melbourne and vast quanti ties of history. One White House aide tried to assemble a
shelf of all the
task.
books written by
New
Frontiersmen,
no small
dress disappeared among and around the Kennedys. Pierre Salinger, after a struggle, gave up his Cali fornia-type shirts with their pink, yellow, orange and green
Loud and sloppy
hues.
Only
in the
most casual moments did he
feel safe
wear-
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
ing them.
On some
occasions he was noted wearing a vest.
The pendulum had swung. The button-down shirt, which

of style, disappeared as well. Naturalness became the rule.
the President declared out
Bob and
Ethel Kennedy
came
Hyannis pick up Central Intelligence and loaded him, to his delight, Dulles Director Allen Agency in a convertible full of children. When the stiff White House
to
airport to
protocol
made no
sense,
Kennedy simply ignored
it.
He
lin
gered by the door at night to bid his party guests good night when the rule book said that he should have gone upstairs
and let the guests find their way out. He grabbed people and shoved them in the receiving lines when he thought they should be there, and rank and order meant nothing. He could kid his famous guests, as he did the day he
greeted India's Prime Minister Nehru in Newport. On the "Honey Fitz," gliding by the great mansions of a past era,
Kennedy
wanted
the
casually waved to the you to see how the average
huge homes and said, American family lives."
"I
Harry Truman and Bess were invited
White House
to stay overnight at for the very simple reason that the Ken
nedys thought they might enjoy it. Margaret and her husband came too.
They did
immensely.
as the
expense-account restaurants became less chic Kennedys established the smartness of dining at home. Night-clubbing was not on their agenda much, either. Nor
The gaudy
was heavy drinking. The gentle sipping of a daiquiri or a bloody Mary was about as far as liquor went. It was not what people were, it was what they could do.
society was born. Those who asked to the White House. were money a included vast from They workaday newsmen to spectrum,
Under
this rule a
new
official
had
talent,
not
alone,
titled foreigners.
By right of office the first couple can control official society. But sometimes in the past, as with Bess Truman and Mamie Eisenhower, they simply did not want to. As the luster of Jackie's entertaining became known, it became obvious that the Kennedys were now society. The newspapers which arbitrate found little space for
other events.
A White House whing-ding swept all else off the
A Way
of Life
pages. Caroline's birthday parties, Jackie's Virginia horseback riding, the President's cruises on the "Honey Fitz," the first
couple's house guests
these were
the headline materials.
The huge
stiff
and probably
embassy receptions, which had been forever will continue forever, dwindled to mere para
r
graphs buried on the inside pages with the grocery ads. The successful hostesses were those w ho got the President
and
his wife to their
homes (such
as
Mrs. John Sherman
Cooper, wife of the Republican senator from Kentucky) or, next in line, the Robert Kennedys (the Don Wilsons). Next important were the other members of the family, then came
close friends,
of the
New
the frighteningly intelligent members such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Walt Frontier,
and then
Rostow and McGeorge Bundy. Gone, or at least out of sight for the time being, were the mastodons who had ruled in previous eras simply by the heft of their bankbooks. Perle Mesta had taken flight after endors ing Nixon loudly and publicly, and she stayed in New York
making plans to return to Washington after a decent inter val. But when she finally did come back to the capital, she
did not
make
had happened
the splash she had predicted. Something funny to her on the w ay to the New Frontier.
r
Cafritz looked in every mail, but there was no in vitation to any of the White House soirees. She threw her an
Gwen
nual "Supreme Court" party in October and carelessly let it conflict with a White House affair. Not a single Supreme
Court Justice showed up.

party giver of lesser years, Scottie Lanahan, F. Scott and Fitzgerald's daughter, also made the fatal miscalculation
A gay
gave a party on the same night the Kennedys were having one of their intimate gatherings for the people they liked. Mrs. Lanahan got the third team, those not invited to the
White House hardly a smashing success. Another of Mrs. Cafritz's affairs which managed
to lure
only a thin sprinkling of New Frontier talent was described by one of those who attended as "the most uninteresting col
lection of people that
anybody could
find anywhere."
The Kennedy group was
described by one Washington
society writer as "the richest, prettiest, most interesting" young people in the country. As a matter of fact, the praise
ni-fi
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
was so lavish that it grew a little heavy. Government was the code name. The Kennedys described what they were doing as the most interesting thing in the
world. Public service was the challenge. Those who answered the call and who did well and who got to know the Kennedys
and
call.
whom
Some
of the rich
the Kennedys liked were apt to be society. young men around the nation heard the
Paul (Red) Fay took a biting cut in salary when he left the family's lucrative construction firm in San Francisco and came back to be Under Secretary of the Navy at $20,000 per annum. So did Don Wilson when he gave up heading Life
magazine's Washington bureau to work for the United States
Information Agency. There was another side to the picture, however. Kennedy's friend Bill Walton found that the demand and hence the
price of his paintings went up as his association with the White House became known. Chuck Spaulding, who had joined with another young man to start an obscure invest ment office, suddenly became a noted New York investment
banker in the newspaper columns. K. LeMoyne Billings, a New York advertising executive, found that his stature in the trade rose in direct proportion to the degree he became
known
as a close friend of the President's.
Correspondent
elected
Charles Bartlett found increased interest in his column
"News Focus" when

and took
office.
his old friend
John Kennedy was

it
Money still helped around Washington, but
did not rule.
An
eager young couple with imagination and wit could lure
the cream of the New Frontier into a tiny Georgetown gar den for an evening of folk singing when the Cafritzes and the Mestas could not entice
them
to
come
out.
Almost forgotten in their stone mausoleums were the old, old Washington society. "We don't even cover those old la dies with canes any more/' acknowledged one society re
porter.
worked
Jackie's entertaining deserved its reputation, because she at it. Each affair was a new creation. She crawled on
the floor
among diagrams as she arranged the complex seat ing. She went over the menus minutely. She made sure to know what food each guest could and could not have.
A Way
of Life
There used to be an embarrassingly silent time at official functions as the guests were pushed into line to shake hands with the President and his wife. Jackie added the soothing music of the President's own red-coated Marine band to coax
her guests through that half hour. When Finland's President Urho Kaleva Kekkonen and his wife came to visit in October, they wT ere ushered into the
and w hite flowers, the colors of the Finnish flag. The Marine band played Finlandia, and in the private quarters on a table Jackie had arranged the dolls which Mrs. Kekkonen had sent earlier as a present to Caroline. Aware from her study that Mrs. Kekkonen liked art and antiques, Jackie gave her a set of books on American art, antiques, homes and literature. And w hen the men went off to talk business, Jackie arranged for the Finnish lady to visit Mount Vernon and the National
State
r
Dining
Room
for lunch. It was decorated in blue
Gallery of Art. In mid-November the Kennedys scored another first: Pa blo Casals played in the East Room. The 84-year-old cellist
had refused
since his self-banishment
from his native Spain
in 1939 to play publicly in any country that recognized Franco. But as a special tribute to Kennedy, he had come back to the White House after fifty-seven years the first
time since he had played as a youth for Teddy Roosevelt. American composers from across the land were invited to the w hite-tie affair. So were the leading patrons and critics of music. There w ere other noted guests, such as New York
r
Mayor Robert Wagner and labor leader George Meany. Casals was superb, and so were the praises that echoed for
days.
(Months
later, still
that her husband
being complimented on the fact had done so much for music through the
Casals performance, the story goes that Jackie kidded, only music he really appreciates is 'Hail to the Chief.' ")
"The
Not only was

to culture.
this
a new kind of society,
it
was a new tribute
The Kennedys both felt that American artists and per formers should be honored by being invited to the White House, that American arts and skills should be displayed for the world to see in this manner. Culture was not only to be enjoyed in this country, but to be spread abroad as a peaceful
2^8
tool in the cold war.
C HAPTERT WENT Y -ONE:
And then, of course, if John Kennedy was allowed to slip in a couple of reporters, some key congressmen, a labor bigwig or two, it did not really offend anyone and it certainly helped
in the old grubby political war. Adding to the new Washington
life
was the new grace and

T
charm of the White House itself. Jackie had set out with determination to restore the in terior that Thomas Jefferson had originally planned for the building. For all its majestic proportions, which came from Architect James Hoban in 1792, the inside w as a hodge podge. There was no unifying theme to its furnishings, and in most cases no authenticity. The old building had been through a violent and diverse history. Abigail Adams had hung her wet laundry in the unfinished East Room back in 1800. Dolly Madison had added a green bathtub and, fleeing before the advancing British Army in 1814, had ordered her
r
servants to smash the frame of the famous Stuart painting of George Washington so that she could save the picture. Jack
son hauled a i,4oo-pound cheese into his quarters for a final reception before he retired from office, smelling the place up for months. Martin Van Buren sold $6,000 worth of furni
ture, some of which James Monroe had purchased in France and smuggled into this country to avoid criticism from local craftsmen. Abe Lincoln's Union soldiers slept on the White House couches with muddy boots, cut up the drapes for sou
venirs. And Chester Arthur, sniffing that the White House looked like a badly kept barracks/' auctioned off twentyfour wagonloads of furniture and hired Louis Comfort Tif
4<
fany to redecorate the place to look like a steamboat

bling parlor.
Jackie the
gam
Kennedy cared. She felt that the time had come White House should cease to be just living quarters for a President, when it should become a "national ob ject," to be cared for like a museum. "I don't know why I feel
when
"How can you help it? When you read Proust or listen to Jack talk about history or go to Mount Vernon, you understand."
that way," she said.
When she had first moved into the White House on that cold inaugural day, she was overwhelmed with it all. "Every-
A Way
of Life
thing we had came in little boxes," she recalled. "I was so confused. They were painting the second story and they had moved us way down to the other end. The smell of paint
was overpowering, and we tried to open the windows in the rooms and we couldn't. They hadn't been opened for years.
they hadn't been used/' But there was one room in the mansion that had survived the waves of gilt and plush. It wâs Lincoln's old Cabinet Room, now known as Lincoln's bedroom. And there still was the massive bed, the furniture that Lincoln had used, the atmosphere of Old Abe.
When we tried the fireplaces they smoked because
"Sometimes," said Jackie, still recalling the first days of her White House tenure, "I used to stop and think about it all. I
wondered 'What are we doing here?' and 'What are we going to be doing in a year or so?' I would go and sit in the Lincoln Room. It was the one room in the White House with a link
to the past. It
Room
bed,
it
gave me great comfort. I love the Lincoln the most, even though it isn't really Lincoln's bed
room. But
it has his things in it. When you see that great looks like a cathedral. To touch something I knew he
had touched was a

felt
real link with
him.
in that
I
room was what you

sit
The kind of peace feel when going into
church.
used to
in the Lincoln
Room
and
could really
feel his strength. I'd sort of
be talking with him."
Jackie Kennedy glowed when she talked of her project This was a world she loved. She appointed a Fine Arts Committee to oversee the under taking. She hired a curator. She formed a scouting party of
herself, the curator
and
a secretary,
the fifty-four White House rooms for forgotten or hidden treasures.

"I
and she led them through and sixteen baths looking
had a backache every day
for three months," she said.
In a ground-floor men's room she and her troop found the
and chipped busts of Andy Jackson, George Wash ington, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci and John Bright. All of them were nose to nose in a stony and dustladen conference that must have been going on for years. All were priceless sculpture, more than 100 years old.
stained
In a carpenter shop, propped up for a handy workbench,
CHAPTER TWENTY -ONE:

was a massive Bellange pier table from the days o James Monroe. It was rescued. A butler gestured toward some age-blackened knives and
spoons in the cluttered storage shelves deep in the White House basement and said, "There's some old junk in there."
Jackie and Lorraine Pearce, her curator, gently picked out the pieces, put them in a soap-pad box, then back in the
temporary curator's office they dropped on their knees and studied them: this was some of the gold and silver flatware which President Monroe had ordered from France in 1817. In the huge White House storage sheds in Fort Washing
ton, Virginia, she
found some chairs that had been Ruther

she
ford Hayes*. At the Red Room.

coln's Cabinet,
first
the portrait of Andy Jackson in But then she noted an old photograph of Lin
hung
and
the picture
had been hanging on the wall
in Lincoln's second-floor offices. Jackie
moved Jackson
to
where Lincoln had placed him.
Word
in. '1
much
of the project spread, and money and antiques came approve of what you are doing to the White House as as I disapprove of your husband's policies," wrote one
first
woman. There were no

In the
partisan lines to this undertaking. flood of gifts and purchases, Jackie received furniture which had belonged to George Washington, Abra
ham
Lincoln, the Madisons, James Monroe, Martin Van Buren, Nellie Custis and Daniel Webster. Secretary of the
Treasury and Mrs. C. Douglas Dillon gave a room full of Empire furniture including Dolly Madison's own sofa. Miss Catherine Bohlen, of Villanova, Pennsylvania, donated a chair from the original set of furniture James Monroe had
ordered for the Blue Room. So
it
went.
through and the rooms. She had poked into them all and she knew them well. She waved at the new dining room which she had made out of Margaret Truman's old bed room. "You had to wait an hour for a pat of butter or else
corridors
Jackie tied her hair with a lavender ribbon and launched another expedition in the house. I followed her this time. In low-heeled shoes she wralked the
One morning
go
down
the elevator yourself," she explained.
The
kitchen
had been in the basement, but under her direction a small family kitchen had been installed next to the new dining
A Way
of Life
2 8l
room, in the space that used to be Miss Truman's dressing room. She worried about the West Hall, which had become the first family's sitting room. "There is no central fireplace," she fretted. In New England fashion, she liked a hearth in the center of a room. On she went. She paused in the second-story Oval Office.
Beyond the windows was Harry Truman's famous balcony and the spectacular view of the Washington Monument and
the Jefferson Memorial. "This is a beautiful room/' she said. "I love
it
most."
Then
up and out the windows. "There's this magnifi cent view. It means something to the man who stands here and sees it after all he's done to get here. "I've added paintings here to help out," she said with a look at the West Hall. "Six Sargents, two Winslow Homers, some Prendergasts, all from the National Gallery." Jackie tapped an elegant round table with a marble top in the center of the room. "We found out from an old bill of sale, where the dimensions are listed, that this was an original
she looked
Monroe piece." Out in the big
hall she
walked on. She motioned
to the
walls, partially covered with paintings of American In dian scenes and landscapes of the Far West. "All the art here
is
now
going to be American," she said. "This comes from the Smithsonian. There is wonderful American art and I want
to display it." At the far end of the second floor Jackie went to the door of the Monroe Room and looked in. "This had been the
dump of the White House," she laughed. In the State Dining Room, she paused and looked. "It is rather pure," she said. "All 1902. We're making it lighter, however, by repainting."
furniture
"Everything
is
Room. "The red damask

I've tried to relieve
reproduction," she frowned in the Red is Renaissance and that isn't right.
some of the redness by putting pictures on the walls." high up In the Blue Room she grew excited. "Teddy Roosevelt went over everything in this room and they made it a wonder ful plain blue. Then in 1948 they added a basket pattern to
oQo
the design
CHAPTER TWENTY -ONE:

and
that doesn't belong. The room is so formal needs a round table and it could be one of the is a very hard room to do because it has four
and
useless. It
best rooms. It
doors and none of them are lined up.

in
it.'*
You
can't center things
In the China Room, where the great collections of famous china and silver are kept, mostly behind lock and key, the First Lady commented, "It is such a shame to lock it all up and never use it. We're going to use some of it now."
On down
cement corridors with
into the basement she charged, through the their bare light bulbs, on through the
screened-off storage areas with shelves of glassware and knickknacks that had belonged to presidents.
and china
She rummaged through the dusty

appeared on her neck.
shelves.
black
smudge
"Look, look/' she cried. "Look at that Lincoln cake plate." She reached in and lifted out the fragile piece. "I w onder if there is enough china here to set nine places for tonight.
r
Senator Gore would love to eat off Lincoln's plates." In the map room, which had become the curator's head
quarters, cluttered with donated objects, Jackie stopped and stared about her, the wonderful feeling of the past soaking in. Then she turned. "My mother brought me to Washing
ton one Easter
w hen
r
was eleven. That w as the

r
first
time
saw the White House. From the outside

ing of the place. But inside
all I
remember the feel remember was shuffling

I
through. They didn't point anything out. They didn't even give you a booklet telling about it. I didn't remember any thing specific. Mount Vernon, the National Gallery and the
FBI made a far greater impression. I remember the FBI because they fingerprinted me." Just to get the feel, she sat in a refinished and reupholstered Monroe chair that was to go in the Blue Room. She
hefted other chairs and busied herself in a
black with age but promising to yield

secrets.
box of vermeil, more White House
There was no end
to
what might be uncovered. Curator
Lorraine Pearce paused to contemplate a passage from a his tory book which quoted a letter of Dolly Madison's written to her sister in haste on August 23, 1814, only hours before she
A Way
fled
of Life
from the
British.
"At
this late
hour," Dolly wrote, "a
wagon has been procured: I have had it filled with the plates and most valuable portable articles belonging to the
house.
.
."
After reading
fire
this,
Mrs. Pearce asked aloud, "I
wonder
if
there are not
took out before the
that
more things which Dolly Madison no one knows about?"
"Before everything slips away," said Jackie, "before every link with the past is gone, I want to do this. When the last
Civil
the past.
still
that was a break with and go to all these people who are the nephews here, w ho know about the White House
I
War veteran died a year or so ago,

want
T
to find
of the sons, the great-grandchildren, the people who are who remember living things about the White House."
still
want every little boy some sense of his tory, to be shown things and have them explained. But I also want it aesthetic. Girls must go out and make homes, and I want it not only to seem significant but to give them a
"I
to get
Then again she became reflective. who goes through this Whiter House
sense of beauty so they will be inspired in their jobs."
CHAPTER TW EX XT-TWO
NEW YEAR
old year had to be tidied
up and a new one

stilled, it
THE
Stern
itself
begun. Though the world had

his
was
still
dangerous place.
Though Kennedy
felt
more
confi
dence in himself and
made a start on
government, he had just barely
his mission.
learned a lot in the
fully. But everyone had even the year country. Its faith in seemed more solid, and that was the bedrock of every
first
tests lay
ahead, this he
knew
thing.
Cabinet Room John Kennedy summoned his Na tional Security Council and a roster of other top administra tion aides in late November. the coffin-shaped table lay a thin book, bound in and with a light-blue
the
To
On
red TOP SECRET.
It
was a
scientific
paper stamped and intelligence estimate
of the results of the Soviet nuclear-test series.
Until then the
New
Frontier had been inclined to believe

startling
that the Russians

their explosions.
had not learned anything
from
scientists
core of the report was a cold analysis by a group of headed by physicist Hans Bethe. It amounted to the fact that the Soviet Union had made immense progress in
fast in tactical
The
thermonuclear weaponry and that they were com atomic abilities. If the United States ing up sat still, there was real danger that the Russians would soon
strategic
surpass this country.
A New Year
9 8ft
They clearly had made progress on an antimissile missile. They showed a capability for developing atomic weapons with vastly more explosive yield per pound of weight than
American scientists had thought them capable of doing be fore. There was evidence that they had improved on the trig
gering device for the hydrogen bombs. The men around the table glumly weighed in with warn
ings about the future. "All right/' said Kennedy. "Just expect after all of the Soviet shots?"
what did you gentlemen
If there was much doubt that the United States would re sume atmospheric testing in the coming April, it diminished now as word of the report leaked out. But as the grim weapons race went on, so did the race for the minds of the people of both countries. Kennedy again
shattered precedent. He granted an interview to Alexei Adzhubei, editor of Izvestia and Khrushchev's son-in-law.
For two hours in the living room of his Hyannis Port home, Kennedy answered Adzhubei's questions. True to the agree
ment, the
full text of the interview
was published in the Rus
sian paper, a notable breakthrough in communications.
And one week Kennedy fixed up his State Department the w ay he wanted to. The change came with such swiftness that
r
it caused few ripples. Dean Rusk called Chester Bowles back from a Harvard-Yale football week end, and on a Sunday when the gray State Building was quiet he told Bowles that he was not to be Under Secretary any longer. Waiting outside Rusk's office was White House Counsel Ted Sorensen, who then talked soothingly with Bowles for two hours to convince him that the President still wanted him, but in a different post.
The
tative
following day Kennedy flew to Washington, called
to the White House and made him Special Represen and Adviser to the President for African, Asian and Latin American Affairs. To replace Bowles, Kennedy named George Ball, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs. He
Bowles
moved George McGhee, then head of policy planning, into the job as Under Secretary for Political Affairs. And from the White House went Walt Rostow to take McGhee's old post.
Q gg
CHAPTER TWENTY -TWO:

shifts finished the job,
Other minor
the
and Kennedy
as
flew off to
Army-Xavy
football
game
as
calm
could be.
of his
Kennedy, the former Navy lieutenant, lectured to fifteen Army commanders, who had come back to this country from their posts around the globe for some Pentagon updat
ing. They stood somewhat self-consciously in a semicircle around the President in his office. "Mr. President, these are your commanders around the world/' said Secretary of the
Elvis Stahr. "I realize that this is entirely a coincidence that this meeting occurred at the time of the Army-Navy game/* began the President. When the laughter died down,
Army
he
stuffed his hands in his pockets and became serious. Certainly, he told the generals, they were skilled in their
work and he was unskilled, but things he would like to say.
there were two or three
They were experts in conventional war, he said. But that was not enough. Now they would have to learn about the internal wars insurgents, guerrillas, counterguerrillas, po lice activity. This was the war Khrushchev had sketched so
plainly in his speech of January 6 that year.
"And
declared.
just military competence is not The new leaders would have to
enough/' Kennedy
know
politics,
eco
nomics, government administration and intelligence tech niques. It was vital, he added, that they went out to find and train this new breed. There would be no letup in his in
sistence that
we master guerrilla warfare.

before,
he had listened to his military experts discussing what small arms to send to Vietnam. Kennedy asked to see what we had to offer. The brass hastily rounded up an old M-i rifle, a new M-14, the World War II carbine and a new Armalite w eapon developed by the Air Force.
r
Not long
Sitting in his chair, the President hefted them all, sighted out the window to get the feel of the guns. "You know/' he
He turned to his ex and was them if the asked perts satisfactory for the Viet gun namese. He was assured that it was. "You aren't going to see a guy 500 yards in the jungle/* he mused, half to himself. Why not send them carbines, since this nation had thousands of them in surplus piles? A problem was solved.
said finally, '1 like the old carbine."
A New
Year
287
year faded, he was sometimes shorter with critics. Listening to the words of a disapproving university professor, Kennedy snapped, "Where does he sit? At that
first
As the
university, not here
Yet
ing at
turers,
humor
where decisions have to be made." certainly had not left him. In New York, talk a luncheon for the National Association of Manufac he wryly noted that most of them had supported his
opponent in the election "except for a very few who were under the impression that I was my father's son." In Miami the very next day he spoke to the Young Demo
and brought a merry shout when he said, "For all I have been reading for the last three, four or five months about the great conservative revival that is sweeping the United States, I thought that perhaps no one was going to show Artemus
crats
Ward once
and
said,
about
fifty
my
other habits are good
years ago, "

also.'
1 am not
Just
up. a politician
down
the street
Harbour, Fla., Kennedy greeted the annual CIO-AFL convention with, "It's warmer here than it was yesterday."
first couple stood in a Venezuelan farmyard and looked down at life-weary peasants. Jackie wore a dress and coat of apricot-colored linen and silk. And the President, slender and tanned, was everything that New
in Bal
As Christmas neared, the
World wealth had wrought. Yet

their dignity
and
sincerity
they were not resented; came through. "We will be more
"We will be part ners in building a better life for our peoples." Speaking in fathers or "No mothers can be happy added, Spanish, Jackie
than good neighbors," said the President.
until they have the possibility of jobs and education for their children. This must be for all and not just a few."
There was personal sadness. When the President returned to Washington from his highly successful South American
Joe Kennedy, the family patriarch, was struck down with a stroke on a Palm Beach golf course. In his office John Kennedy broke off a conversation with Pierre Salinger,
visit,
picked up his phone and after a tense conversation replaced the phone on the hook, looking stunned. "Dad's gotten sick,"
CHAPTER TWENTY -TWO:

he
told Salinger. Then he flew off for his father's bedside.
Palm Beach
to
be at
The
press began
its
New
Frontier and the
summing up of new President.
the
It
first
year of the
was for the most
part cautiously favorable, noting the punishing times that he had been through, noting also that he had seemed to learn
and learn
The view of the second year was one of hope. thoughtful Eunice Shriver, who had watched her
fast.
brother closely during these hard months, commented, "I never heard him say once during the year, 'What a fool I
was.'
"
Kennedy himself was laconic. "There's this fantastic re But it's an interesting job." sponsibility. The Oval Office with its awesome quiet remained. The
.
.
white shaft of the Washington

in the early
Monument
could
sat
still
be seen
December night. John Kennedy and talked. atmosphere
again in this
"It's been a tough first year, but then they're all going to be tough. We're in better shape now, but there are so many chances for trouble because the world is full of trouble."
The
President turned from his visitors for a
moment,
strode out to the adjoining office and picked up the evening paper. He beckoned to a barber to come in. The man spread
a white barber's cloth in the center of the thick green rug with the great eagle of the United States woven into it. He
placed a chair in the center of the cloth. Mechanically the President of the United States sat on the chair, tilted back on
its
hind
legs.
The guests
moment
came the
clip, clip, clip of
glided quietly out a side door. There the barber's shears. But the Presi
dent for the
did not hear or see around him. His
eyes squinted at the fine print.
His mind,
his soul
were en
gaging themselves in the
new problems.
New Frontier, 1962 began auspiciously enough. second State of the Union message did not have Kennedy's the deep verbal knells of the year before. It was a skillful
For the
hedge between pessimism and optimism. On a February morning the New York society band of Lester Lanin still was going strong when the White House
A New
Year
the Stephen party given by Jackie Kennedy for her in-laws Smiths suddenly began to buzz as if a giant electric shock had been sent through it. Guests hurried down the halls for
room but phones. The President departed and went to his did not undress and go to bed. Pierre Salinger, whose affinity
for parties is famous, rushed off to his office, never having taken a drink all evening. It was near 3 A.M. when all became
from Berlin reported that Francis Gary Powers, the pilot of the high-flying U-2 reconnaissance plane which had been brought down over Russia on May i, 1960, had been exchanged for the Russian master spy Rudolf Abel, who had been captured in this country in June, 1957. Re porters tumbled out of bed and rushed, first to hear Salinger tell the news, then off to a darkened Justice Department, where Edwin O. Guthman, assistant to Bob Kennedy, re lated the mysterious story of New York attorney James B. Donovan's negotiation of the exchange in East Germany in a
clear.
call
sequence of events that did justice to any mystery book. Later the same month, on a sunny afternoon, the Presi dent's Naval Aide Tazewell Shepard rushed into his office.
"Mr. President, Colonel Glenn is on the line." Kennedy walked to his desk, stood behind it and picked up
the receiver.
"Hello," said the President. Hearing no answer he into the phone, "Colonel?"
boomed
is Colonel Glenn," came the faraway voice. Indeed was Col. John H. Glenn, Jr., 40, the American astronaut who had just made three successful orbits in space around
"This
it
the earth and had been plucked out of the Atlantic Ocean and was standing safely on shipboard. "Listen, Colonel, we are really proud of you, and I must
say you did a wonderful job," Kennedy yelled into the phone. "We are glad you got down in very good shape. I have just
been watching your father and mother on television, and Well, I am coming down to they seemed very happy. Canaveral on Friday and hope you will come up to Washing ton on Monday or Tuesday, and we will be looking forward
.
.
to seeing
you there." "Fine," said Glenn. "I will certainly look forward Kennedy had a last thought. "How was the
to it." trip?"
he
sgo
asked, not realizing the circuit was already cut. He put the phone down and smiled. It was a time for the whole country
to smile, because the United States
was definitely in the
space race.
And in early March Kennedy went before the people to announce that we would soon be entering another race: **..,! have today authorized the Atomic Energy Commis
sion
and the Department

tests
of Defense to conduct a series of
nuclear
beginning when our preparations

.
are
com
pleted, in the latter part of April.
."
President kept a watchful eye on Berlin, still a sore His intelligence reports told of tension in the air cor spot. ridor. An exchange between a Soviet flyer and his base went
The
something
mine. ...
like this:
*Tm
can
flying
two meters above him
[trans
port plane].
I
...
see his expression

.
and he can
see
He is waving back. waving him down. Can I have permission to shoot ... He did not move. him down. [No answer.] Can I get permission to shoot. I'm no ." breaking off and returning. [Still answer.]
am
. .
.
However, the next

Kennedy's
office.
crisis
was not in Berlin.
It
occurred in
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CRISIS
WITH STEEL
pR
L seemed to be a fateful month for John Kennedy. it brought the Bay of Pigs. In 1962 it brought In
i
1961
Roger Blough, chairman of United

poration.
States Steel
Cor
full of spring. Caro Tuesday, April 10, was a sunny day, the tender line's pony Macaroni had grazed leisurely in
shoots of grass behind the mansion before taking his mistress for a ride as Jacqueline Kennedy watched.
young
Blough
quarters. secretaries
called
first
The call who reside

call.
about 3 P.M. from his New York head was taken by one of Kenny O'DonneH's
in the office outside the President's. It
was a normal
"I
would
like to see the President

^this
he afternoon on a very important matter concerning steel," an appointment told the girl. Would it be possible to arrange was leaving his office in a the afternoon?
for later in
Blough
few minutes to
firmation
fly to
Washington.
He would
check for con
when he arrived. His request was not particularly surprising to O'Donnell, who took it to Kennedy. Blough had gained rather easy ac months. He was cess to the Oval Office over the preceding chairman of the Business Advisory Council, which Kennedy
matters smooth treated very tenderly in an effort to keep fall with the business community. And since the preceding
Goldberg had become the steel work between deeply involved in the negotiations ers and the giant steel companies. with the firm belief that the Kennedy had come into office
Kennedy and Labor
Secretary Arthur
on 2
CHAPTER TWENTY -THREE:

in the
key to a successful administration was more stability
national economy. He was convinced by considerable argu ment from the men around him that he must somehow solve
the riddle of our current stagnation and send the nation into a period of sustained expansion. Without it our own
strength
would suffer and the strength of the free world would be in peril. But economic growth need not be ac
rob the productive in creases of their rewards for the people, reasoned Kennedy.
companied by rounds of
inflation that
There could, with a diligent government and conscientious labor and business leaders, be boom times without inflation. Essential to this end was the price of steel. It had not been raised since 1958, and in June of 1962 a new contract with the United Steel Workers was due. As Kennedy saw it, an increase in the price of steel would not only bring new wage demands from the steel workers, but would send its ripples throughout industry, causing price
increases in virtually all other fields because steel was such a basic commodity. Likewise, harsh labor demands if won by
the United Steel Workers

prices, starting the cycle.
would cause
steel
to boost
its
Kennedy and Arthur Goldberg had launched
their
cam
paign for a "noninflationary" steel settlement early in July of 1961. When Blough brought his Business Advisory Coun
cil to
a White House meeting with Kennedy, there was time
before the council meeting for Blough, the President, Gold berg and David McDonald, President of the Steel Workers,
to
sit
down and talk about the coming contract negotiations.

this
Three more times before
April would these four
men
of the meetings, in get together to go over the problem. were that and so secret no news accounts September January,
Two
were written about them until months later. Out of this came a contract between big steel and the
an-hour boost in fringe
steel
workers that called for no wage increase and only a ten-centbenefits. It was hailed by Kennedy and labor as "noninflationary." Now steel prices would not need to be raised. This had been the reason why the Presi dent had brought management and labor together and had
argued for the national
interest.
He congratulated both sides.

still
On
April 10 Kennedy was
basking in the glow.
It
Crisis
with Steel
2Q &
seemed that price and wage stability could be achieved. But as Kennedy reflected on Blough's request for a meet became a little disturbed. There had been a rumor ing, he over the week end that one of the big steel companies might actually be ready to hike its prices, despite the favorable labor agreement. Kennedy called Goldberg to see what he
knew. Goldberg gave the President a totally negative answer, declaring that he had just the opposite reading as far as he
steel price increases were anticipated by anyone. Arriving in Washington, Blough phoned the White House again and was told that he could see the President at 5:45. He
knew, no
was prompt and was taken to the Cabinet Room to wait for the President. For a change the President was almost on time and Blough had to linger only a couple of minutes. He seemed no different than usual to the staff members w ho had
r
to seeing him come in. ("He was in a jolly mood," O'Donnell later. "He bounced in like a man who Kenny was about to cut steel prices.") There was the friendly Kennedy handshake and smile, the gesture to the couch while Kennedy took his rocking chair.
grown used
said
The goodwill soon terminated, however.

Roger Blough had come
States Steel
to tell
Kennedy
that
United
The
handed
Corporation was raising steel prices $6 a ton. news was in a four-page news release which Blough
to the President
and which Kennedy
hastily read. "I
think you're making a mistake," said Kennedy. He looked at the release again. Then he quickly went to
door and asked Mrs. Lincoln to get Goldberg in a hurry. The Secretary of Labor arrived in less than five min utes. And his first reflex was to start to argue with Blough
his office
against a price increase. "Wait a minute, Arthur/' said the anguished President. "Read the statement. They've raised the price. It's already
done."
But
Kennedy's initial shock began to wear off and he got angry. it was controlled anger. Goldberg was not so restrained. He declared the price rise to be a mistake. He sharply criti
Blough for sitting in the meetings whose whole purpose had been to prevent a price rise and never hinting that a price increase was intended, indeed, on the contrary, acceptcized
CHAPTER TWENTY -THREE

Ing
all along the offices of the President to help get a favora ble labor contract and, having achieved that, announcing the
price increase. This deception as

to
much
as anything
was in
comprehensible Goldberg and Kennedy. They asked Blough to reconsider, but he would not. Gold berg told Blough that he had defrauded the American peo ple, flouted the national interest, and that not only the steel industry but all industry would now suffer. Goldberg said
could bring manage ment and labor together had been destroyed by this act, that
that his
credibility as a
labor's
own
man who
demands
in the
wake
after
of Blough's performance
this
would
performance by management. Blough was unbending, patiently repeating the need for the price increase. For fifty minutes the meeting went on. Kenny O'Donnell wondered what was happening because of the unusual length of such a session with the President. The new s by then was coming over the wires from
coast to coast.
be harsher than ever
faithless
Blough left and Kennedy paced furiously, flopping now and then into his rocker. Staff members Bundy and Sorensen, waiting on another matter, came through the door. When they saw the President so agitated, they did not take chairs
but just stood in the office, watching Kennedy. Goldberg re mained, and Associate Press Secretary Andy Hatcher entered. O'Donnell was there also.
And then came the fateful phrase about the big steel men. "My father always told me they were sons of bitches, but
I
never really believed

i
him
I
until
now."
Kennedy was asked about the reports of have seen repeated as it was repeated in one daily paper is inaccurate," he explained. "It quotes my father as having ex pressed himself strongly to me, and in this I quoted what he said, and indi cated that he had not been on many other occasions wholly wrong. "Now, what was wrong with the statement was that as it appeared in the daily paper it indicated that he was critical of the business community and the phrase was 'all businessmen.* That is obviously in error, because he was a businessman himself. He was critical of the steel men; he worked for a steel company himself, and he was involved when he was a member of the Roose velt administration in the 1937 strike, and he formed an opinion which he imparted to me, and which I found appropriate that evening. But he confined it, and I would confine it. Obviously these generalizations are inaccurate and unfair, and he has been a businessman, and the business system has been very generous to him. But I felt at that time that we had not been treated alto gether with frankness, and, therefore, I thought that his view had merit. But
In his
May
gth press conference
this.
"The statement which
that
is
past.
Now we
are working together,
hope."
Crisis
with Steel
2QK
Kennedy sent for Walter Heller. Goldberg put in a call to David McDonald. There was immediate concern for Mc Donald's position, since he had led his steel workers into the new contract. McDonald's position was considered none too
him badly. But and Goldberg Mc Donald was quite calm about it, suggested that the White House should give the union some public support for its good faith. For nearly two hours Kennedy roamed his office, discussing what to do. It was plain to the President that he had to fight back. The first thing involved was his manhood. Nobody, not even enemies, had respect for somebody who would lie down and take such a beating. Goldberg said flatly that if nothing was done he would resign as Secretary of Labor. Further, there was still a chance that the steel price might
solid
anyway;
this
new move might
injure
in his conversation with the President
be rolled back. Five
steel firms
followed U.S. Steel's lead
im
mediately and raised prices. They represented some 85 per cent of production capacity, but the front was not solid yet. Perhaps Kennedy could hold the crack in the door open and
by other pressures force the giants back into line. Kennedy w as on the phone. He called Robert McXamara, who was in a strategic position for this fight because of all the defense orders for steel and also because of McNamara's lingering friendships from the world of business, including
r
many steel
crucial
in Florida,
Kennedy phoned Douglas Dillon, then McNamara, could help in contacting people. Kennedy talked to his brother and he called
executives.
w ho,
T
like
Clark Clifford back into service.
What
trust action, based
could be done? There was the possibility of anti on the unusual circumstances of all the
major companies announcing their price increases at once. There was the thought of trying to divert some defense pro curement to the companies who held the price line. There was even the suggestion of price and wage controls. And, as always, in Congress there were a handful of proposed bills Tennessee's Albert Gore had one suggesting regulation of steel prices, and Estes Kefauver, the other Tennessee senator,
had a bill calling for advance notice of such price increases. But at that moment, as the sun began to fade in Washing-
CHAPTER TWENTY -THREE

ton,
of these plans seemed promising. The one great weapon immediately available was an appeal to public opin ion. Kennedy had a press conference scheduled for the next
none
afternoon.
people.
He
could,
and he would, lay
his outrage before the
Now
they
and then
as the staff
to find
members watched Kennedy,
something good in the situation. The steel companies had only hurt themselves, the people would rally around the President more than ever before,
attempts
they suggested. Kennedy would have none of it. "This is a setback," he snapped. It hurt everything he was working for
price stability, a balanced budget, ease in the trade bar riers, reduction of the gold flow, unemployment.
before, when the Cuban invasion was beginning crumble, Kennedy had to leave his office around 8:30 to dress for the annual congressional reception. Thinking of the
made
As a year
to
some humor:
tion/'
coincidence of timing as he went out, Kennedy managed 'I'll never have another congressional recep
But unlike the reception of a year ago, where Kennedy could not share his misery, this one proved to be a working session. Lyndon Johnson was at the President's elbow, offering
his help in the offense against big steel. there, ready for battle. Kefauver ambled
Albert Gore was
by and
said,
"I
think the steel price increase
turned up in the Red Room,
awful." Arthur Goldberg and there he and the President

is
T
held a lengthy council of war. In the meantime the office lights burned in the w est wing of the White House and in the Executive Office Building.
Walter Heller's staff was busy amassing economic figures. Sorensen was toying with ideas for the press-conference statement. Goldberg left the reception and went back to his office, where he put down his thoughts in a memorandum. A final and bitter touch was added during the night. About 10, a messenger delivered a letter to Walter Heller's home, but Heller was still in his office, working. It was a hand written message on a small piece of blue note paper from
Ted
the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel.
"Dear Walter/' it read. "I discussed the enclosure with the President briefly late today and thought you would like a
Crisis with Steel
Hope to discuss it with you sometime soon Roger." note was clipped to a copy of the U.S. Steel price state ment. It naturally became known as the ''Dear Walter" document and was placed among other exhibits in the White
copy.
The
House file, which was growing by the hour. On the following morning, when Kennedy had breakfast with his aides, they brought their ideas and figures with them. Normally such breakfasts break up at 9:30, but this one lasted until 10:30 as the men worked over the points Ken nedy should make in his TV appearance in the afternoon. Back in his office, Sorensen fitted and refitted the phrases, and Kennedy himself added and subtracted words. The state ment, which would open the conference to be carried on live
TV, was
actually not finished until 3:22, just eight minutes
before air time.
Then Kennedy
walked to
his limousine.
On
got up from his desk and the short drive to the New State
still
Department Auditorium he
He
barked questions at
mulled the sentences over. Sorensen and Hatcher, who rode
with him.
When had
the last big
company signed
its
contract
with the Steel Workers?
did the contracts go into effect? When had Blough put out the public statement about the price increase? Be sure about it.
After his
first
When
outburst Kennedy's anger had subsided into
determination. But for the press conference a controlled fury was a necessary act. Kennedy was a superb performer. I recall lounging in a front-row seat in the well of the au
ditorium waiting for the press conference to begin and specu lating with The New York Times' E. W. (Ned) Kenworthy on just how tough Kennedy would be. We all knew he would
But I had never seen Kennedy covering him sustain more than a few seconds
be
critical.
in my years of of public anger,

office
a luxury that
afford.
men hungering for high

T
public
can rarely
his energy was all focused in his secretive effort to pressure the steel companies to
My
hunch w as
that
by now
rescind their action, that his public statement would be rather a moderate and logical appeal to reason, thus riling no more
people than necessary while he hunted for the jugular in the back rooms. New Englander Kenworthy was of a differ
ent mind. "I think he's really going to give said. We made a bet.
it
to steel,"
he
2Qg
CHAPTER TWEX TV -THREE:
Kennedy came out the side door, and I first noticed that the slight, wry smile that he usually gave to the correspond ents who knew him was missing. He did not even look at
them.
He
strode across the carpeting, teeth
Two assistants,
of gloom.
He
set, jaw a bit out. Hatcher and Jay Gildner, followed in a cloud placed his papers on the rostrum, stiffened both
arms and gripped the stand. I sensed that I had lost my bet with Kenworthy. "Simultaneous and identical actions of United States Steel and other leading steel corporations increasing steel prices by some S6 a ton constitute a wholly unjustifiable and irrespon sible defiance of the public interest. In this serious hour in our nation's history, when we are confronted w ith grave crises in Berlin and Southeast Asia, when w e are devoting our energies to economic recovery and stability, w hen we are asking reservists to leave their homes and families for months on end and servicemen to risk their lives and four w ere killed in the last two days in Vietnam and asking union
r
members
restraint
to hold
down
their
wage
increases, at a time
when
and sacrifice American people will

tion in
suit of
are being asked of every citizen, the find it hard, as I do, to accept a situa
which a tiny handful of steel executives, whose pur power and profit exceeds their sense of public respon sibility, can show such utter contempt for the interests of 185
million Americans.
It
.
.
."
was Kennedy's most withering public fire. Roger Blough watched the show in silence in his New York conference
room.
The mood pervaded the rest of the press conference. Rarely did Kennedy smile. Once, pointing to a questioner, he growled, "Yeah?'* something that he had never done be
news conference. In answering other questions he would return to the steel issue just to make sure that every one knew his concern. Kennedy walked out of the auditorium as unsmiling as he had come in, and he went straight to a small anteroom, w here
fore in a
y
he
sat
down
came
for a few seconds.

to
He
did not speak.
aides
him
to congratulate
him on
the
And when manner in
which he had presented the steel statement, he just stared at them in silence. He was not at all happy.
Crisis
with Steel
2QQ
Kennedy's offensive began to pick up steam.
When
Bethle
hem
to
Steel Corporation's President
Edmund
Martin began
deny a statement attributed to him by newsmen that there should be no price increase in steel if American firms were to remain competitive, Bob Kennedy sent the FBI out
to establish the facts. The zealous agents routed reporters out before dawn, and immediately the Kennedys w ere accused
r
hunt for incriminating it would start announced Department a grand-jury investigation to see if the steel industry had vio
evidence.
of gestapo tactics. Other FBI agents, swarmed into the steel-firm offices to
armed with subpoenas,
The
Justice
said that his

Steel
lated antitrust laws through collusive pricing. Bob Kennedy department w*as going to consider whether U.S.
ought to be broken up on the grounds that it had monopoly power to set the industry prices. From the White House came the facts and figures to "prove" that U.S. Steel did not need a price increase. Government attorneys went to
work on emergency
legislation that called for a rollback of
the increases for ninety days. In Congress Kennedy won sup port from the liberals. Estes Kefauver declared that his Anti
trust
try.
and Monopoly Subcommittee would probe the indus
Kennedy had assembled an informal task force to plan the steel offensive. It first met at 8:50 A.M. on April 12. Ted Sorensen w as the leader of the group when the President was not there. There w ere Lee Loevinger, head of the Justice De
r
partment's Anti-Trust Division; Arthur Goldberg; Robert McNamara; Walter Heller; Larry O'Brien; Bob Kennedy;
Paul R. Dixon, head of the Federal Trade Commission; Henry Fowler, Under Secretary of the Treasury; Nicholas
Katzenbach, deputy Attorney General; and James Tobin, a
member of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Only a few minutes after the meeting started Kennedy came in with a fistful of telegrams. He pushed them across the table. "We're way ahead," he said. The first tally of the
him
public response to his press conference was 2.5 commending to i criticizing. The White House kept a close eye on these returns because the public attitude was a huge factor telegrams were placed on one aide's
in the struggle. (There was an uneasy

first
moment when the desk. He picked up

the top one and read: "Mr. President,
why
are you picking
on the
steel industry?")
Kennedy complained to the men around him about the morning column of Scotty Reston, which had pointed out in
good humor that it was just a year ago that Kennedy had been in the midst of the Bay of Pigs misadventure. Good
or not, the President did not w ant the notion spread that he was involved in another Bay of Pigs. Before he ing rushed off to meet with the Shah of Iran, who w as visiting
humor
Washington
at the time,
officers
aroused. Cabinet
he asked that public opinion be kept McNamara and Hodges and Dillon
r
were to hold press conferences. These men w ere to detail just what the increase would mean for farmers, w hite-collar work
T
ers, laborers.
As the
task force
worked
at the
problem, the
men began
con
to eliminate the impractical suggestions. Price and wage too drastic an action. trols were out of the question
The
suggestion that
this country,
tariffs
be reduced to allow foreign
steel into
thereby forcing American prices back, was also
abandoned.
The influx of foreign steel would damage the steel workers as much as the industry management. McXamara was not very optimistic about the pressure
which could be applied by selective procurement of steel for defense needs. In only a few instances, he pointed out, could orders be shifted without hurting the national interest. Roger Blough took to television in New York to answ er Kennedy, but his sincere, fact-studded appeal w as smothered by the din from Washington. Kennedy did not bother to w atch. "I don't need to listen to him/' he snapped. But the White House took notice, just to be certain. The Army Signal Corps, w hich handles the
r
y
President's communications, recorded Blough *s performance on tape to hold at the ready should the facts be needed. (Kennedy was much less reluctant to listen to himself. Back in the White House after his own press conference, he had dialed in a replay of the press conference and listened in tently. At one point, anticipating the next day's journalistic
opposition, he had turned to his aides: "I can tell you wiiat the New York Herald Tribune editorial will say tomor
row/'}
Crisis
with Steel
%Ql
from the White House and from all the major departments of the government grew hot from the calls to steel executives around the country.
lines
The phone
Goldberg and Clark Clifford kept the communications open between Washington and U.S. Steel, arguing that the company should roll back prices. Bethlehem was another tar
get, particularly since President
Martin was in such an un
comfortable spot for having made his statement before the price increase was announced.
But Roger Blough's
Achilles' heel
was Inland
Steel,
Chi
central location, this firm, the eighth biggest, cago. had a snug market and was in a position to cut into the mar kets of the eastern giants. Inland had not joined the other six
its
With
companies in the price hike but waited cautiously in the wings. Inland's chairman was Joseph L. Block, a member of Kennedy's Labor-Management Advisory Committee, but
he was in Japan. However, Goldberg and Under Secretary
of
Commerce Edward Gudeman
called their friends Philip
D. Block, Vice Chairman of Inland, and Leigh B. Block, an Inland vice president. Philip Block told Kennedy that he
was not at
all certain his
for the time being,
he
firm could hold prices down. But said, perhaps ten days or two weeks,
Inland would not boost prices.
The
news, announced on
Thursday, was a strong gain for John Kennedy. "Good, good, very good," he said. McNamara, in examining his procurement orders, found
add some persuasion. The Navy's Bureau of Ships promptly announced that a $5,500,000 order for steelplate for Polaris submarines, which normally would have been split between U.S. Steel and Lukens Steel Company, the only two producers of this type of steel, would go entirely to Lukens, a firm which had not raised prices. Friday morning Walter Heller had some interesting calcu lations. He had figured that the companies which were hold
that he could
ing prices
down comprised about
16 per cent of the
produc
tion capacity of the nation. He estimated that with the business the government could swing to these companies and the extra business they would get from the natural play of
of the market, competition, they might gain some 9 per cent bringing their capacity to 25 per cent. McNamara pointed

out to Sorensen's war council that
this
it
might not seem
like
much change
in the picture,
but
should be remembered
that not a single steel company would want to lose 9 per cent of its business. Heller could have gone further. Steel execu
were acutely aware of the fact that to gain or lose a frac per cent of the market in a year w as highly signifi cant in terms of the huge gross sums of steel's annual business. Meantime there had come the first hint that Kennedy's of fensive might be making headway. Thursday night Clifford had met secretly with U.S. Steel officials in Washington. He had urged a price rollback. The steel men had been firmly against it, but they did want to continue talking about the
tives
tion of
developing situation. About midnight Thursday, Clifford phoned the President in the White House to tell him of this
door and to report that if steel wanted to more, Roger Blough would phone him the next morning. Blough did phone early and asked that they continue to discuss the matter. Kennedy sent Clifford and Goldberg hur
slight crack in the
talk
rying to
New York.
While Ted Sorensen's battle group kept up its fire, Ken nedy had to turn to other things. On Friday he flew off to
Oceana, Virginia, to join the
sea.
Navy
for a
week-end review
at
His big jet roared into the Naval Air Station, and Kennedy climbed out into a chill, go-knot wind. He received military honors, gave a wave to the crowd and turned to board his
helicopter.
It
was then that the
flash
came from Washington: Bethle
hem
Steel had rescinded its price increase. And about an hour and a half later, as Kennedy finished inspecting the nuclear submarine "Thomas A. Edison" and stepped back on land there were calls from the White House and New York re porting total victory: U.S. Steel had taken the same action as Bethlehem. As he boarded the command cruiser U.S.S.
somewhat amazed
Kennedy, though still conquest, was thoroughly *1 the other think pleased. companies will all follow now," he said. **They can't afford not to." He drafted a statement
sea,
''Northampton" for his night at

at
his
swift
commending the steel companies for their action. Saturday, as Kennedy stood on the foredeck
of
the
Crisis
with Steel
miles long, steel prices were back to the start of the week.
"Northampton" steaming down a double row of ships nine where they had been at
As soon
as price rollback came,
for a reconciliation
arrangements were made between Blough and Kennedy, to take
at Slough's convenience. And so on seven Tuesday morning, just days after he had phoned and the steel started drama, Blough was on the line again, this
place the following
week
time to Mrs. Lincoln.

is Roger Blough/' he said. "The man you've been about." As he had no trouble before, reading getting an ap
"This
pointment,
out of his
this
one
for 6 P.M.
On Tuesday noon before Blough was due, Kennedy

office
stared
into a
soft,
spring day and reflected on the
whole
steel episode.
The
magnolias near his windows were
blooming, so was a fringe of red tulips. Workmen were un rolling sod in the new Rose Garden. He walked out along
the porch
still
and headed
for the
mansion and lunch.
He w as
r
mulling over the
steel matter.
"Roger Blough is coming to see me this afternoon," he said abruptly to a companion. "I suppose he wants to re-establish communication. I'm sympathetic to him." What would be the President's attitude now toward busi ness, he was asked. Was it war in the old F.D.R. style? At the ground-floor elevator Kennedy punched the button; when the door slid open he entered silently. Then he
suddenly turned to his questioner. "No, no, we're not going to do that. They're our partners unwilling partners. But we're in this together. I want business to do well. If they
don't,
we
don't."
living quarters of the White House were quiet, and the President walked across the hall to his room for lunch.
The
On
the stand beside his bed where
he stretched out was a
On Moral Courage by Sir Compton Mackenzie. was concerned deep down about the aftermath of the steel episode, it was plain. He had won the price battle. But had he lost the business community? So far there was no indi cation that such was the case. There had been the expected outcries from the Republican industrial strongholds. Edito
book
He
rial reaction
was
split.
Blough's timing of the announcement
Q/yj
and, indeed, even the need for a price rise had been ques tioned by some leaders of industry as well as by the New
Frontier. Congress
not stirred
had remained calm and the public had if anything, seemed to like to see a ty skill. Yet, it was still pretty early, such with coon assaulted and any earth tremors down in the bedrock would not have
much
and,
had time
to
come
to the surface.
Reflecting some of this apprehension, Kennedy talked on. "No, no, There's no war. I'm not against business I want to help them if I can. But look at the record. I spent a whole year trying to encourage business. And look what I get for it. ... What do they mean by all this 'antibusiness' stuff
anyway?
last
don't get
it.
Point out to
me a single
instance in the
me
year when I've said anything that's antibusiness. Show a single thing I've done that is antibusiness. You can't
point to a statement or an action that is antibusiness. Ike could have tried to give business a tax break. But he didn't
do
it.
I'm
at least trying.
preciation credit. Ike
do a
thing.
We
We're going to give them better de had the power to do that and he didn't recommended that the government get out of
the railroads. I spoke to the National Association of Manu facturers, no Democrat or Republican has done that recently. We're trying to do something about trade with our bill this
year."
His
interest in the price of steel
was an extension of his
concern about business, about trade, about the economy. It was basic to the country. "I don't see how the price increase
would have solved United States Steel's problem anyway," he went on. "All the steel companies have different problems. Get a copy of the statement we put out. We were trying to look at it the best way. See how many stock splits they had in recent years. See their profits. They've been trying to modern
ize their plants
tics.
out of
profits.
They made
a deal with
Nixon
until after the election.
they think they'll do it. How could they possibly justify an increase this time when the new labor contract didn't cost them anything and when they didn't raise them the last time when wages really were in-
and couldn't raise
Then prices, so now
they got caught in poli in 1960 not to raise prices they got caught in the recession
Then
Crisis
with Steel
creased.
But whether we look
at
pect to play the game the way he'd have said they had to have a price increase, all this wouldn't have happened. I'd have talked to them. would
right or not, they can't ex Roger Blough did. If, last fall,
it
We
work something out. But it's the way they did it. When we talked with Roger Blough he always said he had problems and that it was difficult for the company, that's true.
have tried to
never promised he wouldn't raise prices. I never asked him. But he sat right down with us and never said a wr ord
He
about his intentions to raise the price of steel. That was my whole purpose in having those talks to keep the price down. He knew that. I didn't want to have a fight. Nobody noticed that on the same day I did the steel thing I invoked
Taft-Hartley to settle the shipping strike. I'm sympathetic to Blough 's problem. But I think I ought to get a little more re
sponse from business." The President was by
now
resting
on
his
bed against two
saw ed away on a piece of chicken. He was huge pillows. "I ideas. think maybe I ought to get a little tougher testing with business. I think that may be the way to treat them.
T
He
They understand
me.
I
it.
When
think
I'll
just treat
I'm nice to them they just kick them rougher. Maybe it will do some
good."
The
President said that he regretted the FBI agents hav
ing routed out the newsmen in the dead of night. It had not been intended for them to act in this way. He was not totally
regretful,
however. "Maybe
it
didn't hurt," he mused.
lawsuit on price fixing, which was already in the would have to go forward, he explained. But the idea of breaking up U.S. Steel would be dropped.
court,
The
"This couldn't happen again," said the President, taking a long look back at the previous week. "No other set of condi
steel
tions in industry are like those in steel. It is so basic. What does is vital to the national interest. Nothing else can be
compared with it."
Then he thought ahead

to
to the afternoon meeting. "I'll talk
Roger Blough and
we'll
be friends again.
1 '
What
if
he
wants to raise the price of steel again? The President let out his dry, quiet chuckle, then he lay down for a quick nap.
306
Roger Blough was on time
again.
He
walked in
at the
southwest gate, unnoticed except for one photographer. The light was fading as he went up the drive, a guard with him to
guide him to the correct door. Again Blough was shown to the Cabinet Room, and again he waited only a few minutes. Kennedy came out of his office. The tw o men shook hands
r
and Kennedy asked,
He
visit.
led the steel
"How are you?" man to a chair

r
beside his desk for this
rocking-chair intimacy w as gone. Blough was first concerned about the photographer who had spotted him, but Kennedy did not worry in fact, he intended to announce
The
the meeting
when
it
was over.
For forty minutes they talked about the problems of steel, of industry, of the United States. Kennedy told Blough that he realized U.S. Steel had problems, as did all the business
community. He did not want to fight them, he wanted to help them, but he needed some help from them in return. Again he ran over the record of his efforts that he considered
friendly to business. It was not a
warm
meeting, understand
ably. Blough had not come to apologize or ask forgiveness for trespasses. They talked somewhat as unwilling partners, to use Kennedy's words. But they were together again.
"We are aware of the disadvantages of victory," said Walter Heller as he and the other New Frontiersmen waited and watched to see what would happen to public and busi
week to ten days they had nothing much to worry about. Larry O'Brien tuned in on the Congress and found mostly support from the Democrats. Mail to the White House on this issue was split, half supporting Kennedy, half denouncing him. But this was not considered abnormal the situation had occurred before. The President took what precautions he could. He hurried
over to a
ness opinion. In the first
Chamber
of
Commerce meeting
in Constitution
Hall and spelled out his feelings about the need for business to do well if the country was going to do well. When a report
from his twenty-one-member Labor-Management Advisory Committee came in, he took special pains to see that it got
Crisis u'ith Steel
proper public notice, since that report recommended some curtailment in labor's power. Kennedy sent a wire congratu lating Yale University and Roger Blough, who was being
honored by the school. It would have been a strange perform ance at any other time. The high Democratic politicians during the first post-steel week actually began to think that, if anything, Kennedy had
strengthened his political base. He had, indeed, alienated some businessmen, but they had voted for Nixon anyway.
Kennedy's basic political strength was with labor, and cer tainly labor had not found his action against steel objection
able.
"Not one
of those bastards
who
is
making
the noise
now
voted for us in 1960," said one party leader. "And not one of them is going to vote for us. Who are they trying to kid?
We
never had them and
we
r
you something, to win to be against. You've got to have the right enemies. If I were running for office I'd want to have the Chamber of Com merce oppose me, to have big business oppose me and if you threw in the AMA, Fd be sure to win." Kennedy during these days repeated whenever he could
the uniqueness of the steel action. "The steel situation won't happen again. That was a personal thing." Walter Heller and Douglas Dillon toured the business-
aren't going to get them. Let me tell elections you've got to have someone
banquet
circuit.
Whenever and wherever
the
New
Frontier
could place a speaker to talk about its hope for business, the man was dispatched with presidential blessings. Kennedy
hand-picked a blue-ribbon delegation to go to Hot Springs for a meeting of the Business Council (formerly the Business
Advisory Council). Walter Heller w as the chief theologian for the Kennedy business message. A new business-government relationship had been evolving nicely under Kennedy, he pointed out. Suddenly there came a revolutionary interlude. But that in
r
terlude did not destroy the real basis for this

ship.
new
relation
The
real basis
was what Kennedy was actually doing to
help business
tax reduction,
tion schedule. It was easy the President and business for business to slip back to all the
new trade bill, new deprecia when trouble broke out between

old cliches about bureaucracy, Heller noted.
He went
sat
to a
to
Chamber
of
Commerce banquet, and when he
elbow
elbow and talked with the men, he found that the areas of agreement were vast. There was more common ground, he said, than other. But Washington is a strangely insulated and isolated city. It feeds on itself. The correspondents talk
to each other,
its
talk to each other,
bureaucrats talk to each other, its legislators and the President talks to those around
him. These groups exchange views, and thus the talk first rotates in the little circles, then is flung into the larger orbit,
is tested beyond the Potomac. And not much can from the outside. The dust of a prairie is soon penetrate washed off in Washington and often forgotten. The luxuri ous interors of \Vashington salons also soon blot out memo
but rarely
ries of
smoke-stained factory towns.

the District of
Columbia there were some percep denunciations of John Kennedy which had been contained within the w alls of New York's Union
Beyond
tible shivers.
The
League Club, Pittsburgh's Duquesne Club, the Omaha Club and the other bastions of businessmen throughout this land,
began
to filter
out
to the street.
On
April 23
The New York Times published
a recapitula
For the first time in the Times' 1 1 1year history they used the words "sons of bitches" and they put it in the mouth of the President of the United States. The steel incident now became an intimate battle beween businessmen and a hostile President.
tion of the steel drama.
Actually Kennedy's pungent description of big steel men had been printed a few days before the Times carried it, but it had been largely passed over. The Times gave it awesome
authenticity.
There are few words more devastating. Yet there are few profane exchanges among males in which the w ords are not used. It is a full-blooded American epithet. And each of the
r
last
called
Harry Truman Columnist Drew Pearson an S.O.B. within earshot of reporters, and the incident caromed through the newspapers for weeks. Eisenhower, it appeared, had lived through eight years without getting caught, though he was a splendid custhree presidents has been a practitioner.
ser in private.
But in May of 1962 labor writer John Herling
Crisis
with Steel
2OQ
published his book The Great Price Conspiracy, the story of the antitrust violations in the electrical industry. He wrote
that at a Cabinet meeting Attorney General William Rogers had brought along a copy of an electrical executive's notes on
the private rules of price conspiracy. It was such a singular document that it was passed around the Cabinet table. "The
only thing those sons of bitches forgot to warn them about " Ike was reported to have told his was: 'Don't take notes/ 1 of Cabinet. Kennedy, course, got caught at the start. And,
indeed, there seemed to be considerable relief
among
the
populace that his Harvard vocabulary was suitably buttressed with basic expressions. Nevertheless, this was the opening that businessmen needed. The fight became very personal. Their initial peace with the New Frontier had been unnatural. Many had been uneasy in it. Almost with glee they joined the battle. They did not deify Roger Blough. In fact, many a steel ex
more harsh on him than Kennedy had been. But attacked Kennedy's involvement with the free-enter they wisdom and his authority prise system. They questioned his in saying anything about steel prices. In the United States,
ecutive was
went the argument, U.S. Steel and anybody else had a right to go broke if they wanted to. It was, in short, none of Ken
nedy's
damned business.
28 was blue Monday.
May
The
stock market plummeted.
Visions of 1929
filled Wall Street. The sinpere testimony from John Kennedy's economic experts that the message of intention to enforce it had price-wage stability and Kennedy's
stocks to deflate to a realistic gotten through, causing bloated the in anguished cries against Kennedy. level, was swept away brokers and industrialists this the They were not only from time. The fifteen million Americans who held stocks were
into every part of the land. jolted. Disillusionment crept
Small-town merchants, farmers and white-collar workers who had put money in stocks for their old age suddenly found their paper profits wiped out. It was a grim experience for who had ridden the spirals of the market to astounding
many
heights.
i After his brush with steel, Kennedy learned about the Herling reference, a copy of his book to the called Herling to confirm the fact. Herling then took
White House.
9
1
CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE:
Yet beneath all the concern there was a layer of confidence n the economy that was not shattered. The figures showed that 1962 would be an excellent business year. Indicators for 1963 were good. On the following day Kennedy called in his top economic brains, and in the Cabinet Room they reaf firmed their belief that the plunge was a needed shake-out. The President decided to do nothing but to talk confidence. Douglas Dillon w alked from the Cabinet Room to face re
r
porters:
"The
general
economy
is
very sound.
Stock
prices
high. They dropped to an area where usual bear relation to reasonable profits. ... I see no they reason for panicky selling. I don't see anything particular the
had been too
government can do." The market rallied, then slipped again. It wavered, fell more. But over the weeks it began to steady. Apparently the diagnosis of bloat had been correct. That made little difference in the attack on Kennedy. Businessmen sported SOB buttons. Jokes spread with the speed of sound. Joe Kennedy, went one, had awakened the morning after the stock-market drop, seen the headlines and
said, "I
never should have voted for that son of a bitch."
There was the one about John Kennedy, Bob Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in a sinking boat. Who would be saved?
Answer: the country. 2
- Months later the White House press would make up a song about the in cident as is the custom with notable days of every administration. This one, sung to the tune of "Side by Side" went:
Roger Blough wanted
to
make money,
Jack didn't think it was funny, So he went on TV and said publicly, SSSSSS
OOOOOOBBBBBB.
Bobby said I'm a tooth for an eye man. So he called up the Federal BI men.
They
jerked reporters from bed.
But Jack only said, Don't blame me.
He said
we're just fighting inflation.
What if your profits do fall. And if no steel leaves the station.

It really doesn't I
matter at
all.
know what
his
learned from
said,
On
knee he
my daddy. my laddy,
In big business you'll find only one kind, SSSSSS OOOOOOBBBBBB.
Crisis
with Steel
O
its efforts
l l
Circumstance did not co-operate with the New Frontier in to steady the economic nerves of the nation. May the day after Blue Monday, was Kennedy's 45th birthday. 29,
was noted with a touch of bitterness by some that multi John Kennedy received another $5 million un der the terms of the trust his father had set up for him. How
It
millionaire
could a
man
of his vast and secure holdings understand a
normal person's anxieties? Trucks drove up to the White House with flowers for Kennedy, and among them was a rocking chair covered with yellow chrysanthemums and white carnations, a present from Frank Sinatra. The White House hastily sent it out to Chil
dren's Hospital, the President not even taking a look. White House Chef Rene Verdon whipped up a chocolate cake, a
favorite, and sent it out to Glen Ora, where the was family gathered for the President's birthday party. And then the story broke that Kennedy had become so angry over
Kennedy
the treatment of the news by the stanchly Republican New York Herald Tribune that he refused to read it any more,
ordered the White House's twenty-two subscriptions stopped and replaced by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, a stanchly
Democratic paper.
was unhealthy as June ap He was still convinced that his economic reasoning was sound, but he feared that the business community's bitterness toward him might actually affect its confidence in the future, and such a loss of confi dence could seriously affect the economy. He asked New York banker Robert Lovett down for a long searching talk. Should the margin requirements for the stock market be lowered? Should he go on the air to reassure the American people about the basic stability of the economy? Should there be a tax cut now to unfetter the economy? He sought out similar advice from McNamara, Hodges, and Dil
national atmosphere
The
proached, and Kennedy
knew
it.
lon, from Roger Blough, Senator Robert Kerr, John McCone, Federal Reserve's William McChesney Martin and Clark
those he knew with business background and con But the men Kennedy talked to were a special group. They had either deserted business for government service or they belonged to the community of New York
Clifford
nections.
jr
financiers, all of
whom sympathized with
the President's prob
men directly in industry in Detroit or were no men near Kennedy who ran a steel There Chicago. mill or were responsible for a production line. Though Ken
lems more than the
nedy might not have learned economics from such men, he might have learned their mood, w hat made them think as
r
they did.
Sensing his slumping popularity, Kennedy decided to make a major business speech in mid-June at Yale University,
where he was to receive an honorary degree. He and his economic advisers labored for days on the speech, and Ken nedy even penciled in paragraphs as he flew to New Haven.
second company of the Connecticut governor's foot guards greeted him at the airport. The band played "Beauti ful Ohio/* and Kennedy, clutching his speech, sped off for the campus in the muggy June w eather. For thirty-two
r
The
to some 10,000 students, parents on Old Campus. His was the first speech allowed during the graduation ceremony since 1903. From the standpoint of his economists, his speech was su
minutes Kennedy talked
and
visitors
perb;
it
championed
their doctrine.
it
From
the standpoint of
his relations with business,
was a failure. "It might be said noxv that I have the best of both worlds," began Kennedy. "A Harvard education and a Yale degree. ... I am particularly glad to become a Yale man because as I think about my troubles, I find that a lot of them have come from other Yale men. Now that I, too, am a Yale
. . .
." time for peace. man, But Kennedy's offer of peace was strictly on his terms. "As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truism and a stereotype, so in our own time we
it is
.
.
must move on from reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult but essential confrontation with reality. For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -delib
and dishonest but the myth persistent, and unrealistic persuasive today I want to particularly con sider the myth and reality in our national economy. "There are three great areas of our domestic affairs in
erate, contrived
. .
.
which, today, there

fective action.
is
a danger that illusion
...
If a contest in
may prevent ef angry argument were
Crisis
with Steel
forced
sponse, are totally without resources in an engagement forced them because of hostility in one sector of society.
.
upon it, no administration could shrink from re and history does not suggest that American presidents
upon
"Let us take
ernment.
first
The myth
the question of the size and shape of gov here is that government is big and bad
.
and steadily getting bigger and worse. We "Next, let us turn to the problem of fiscal policy. persist in measuring our federal fiscal integrity today by the conventional or administrative budget with results which would be regarded as absurd in any business firm in any country of Europe or in any careful assessment of the reality It omits our special trust funds; of our national finances.
.
.
neglects changes in assets or inventories. It cannot tell a loan from a straight expenditure worst of all, it cannot dis
it
tinguish between operating expenditures
and long-term
. .
in
vestments
"It
is
...
it
can be actively misleading.
and of high importance that the prosperity of this country depends on assurance that all major elements But there within it will live up to their responsibilities. is also the false issue and its simplest form is the assertion that any and all unfavorable turns of the speculative wheel however temporary and however plainly speculative in character are the result of, and I quote, 'lack of confidence in the national administration/ This I must tell you, while Business had full confi comforting, is not wholly true.
true
.
dence in the administrations in power in 1929, 1954, 1958 and 1960 but this was not enough to prevent recession when business lacked full confidence in the economy. "Some conversations I have heard in our country sound like old records, long-playing, left over from the middle
. .
Thirties.
."
On
its
way
Washington,
to the airport for Kennedy's return flight to the President's motorcade roared through the
New Haven. In windows were the workers, and cheering to Kennedy. It was a welcome sight and waving sound because his Yale audience had not responded with much enthusiasm, and many of the country's businessmen would consider the talk an outright insult. As he flew back to Washington, Kennedy wondered if an open war with busifactory district of
a-i A
CHAPTER T w ENT Y -TH REE

and
ness was not inevitable, in the F.D.R. tradition,

efforts to re-establish
ish.
it.
if
his
But
this
a "dialogue with business" was not fool was only a thought, and Kennedy soon dismissed
Business had to do well for
him
to succeed.
Perhaps one of the most perceptive observations of this time came from the Washington Evening Star's Mary Magrory, who watches government people with a rare insight.
No
economist, no financial writer was she, but one of her
half-humorous, half-serious columns hit home. "Obviously/' she wrote, "President Kennedy
ing with business. But
is
is
not succeed
instituted, really trying? for instance, at the great clubs frequented by his officials, a policy of 'Bring a Businessman to Lunch? Has he bidden
he
Has he
Chairman Roger Blough to Glen Ora? "Politicians and businessmen proceed in somewhat the same manner, even if the profit motive is different, with the first wanting power and the second merely money. Both classes must be good salesmen, ruthless competitors and big
U.S. Steel
.
gamblers. "But President

.
Kennedy never
talks to
them
[business
men] about what they have in common. He doesn't even speak their language. At Yale, he explored 'myths and cliches/ not the usual coin of exchange at the Rotary Club.
. . .
Incurably intellectual, he told them that
it
was neces
sary to move from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult but essential confrontation with reality.
.
"The
out that
President also spoke of the need for ending the

it exists,
'angry argument/ but

President.
appears he cannot resist pointing perhaps a reflex action in a Democratic

it
At
the
... As a partisan, he may even be relishing it. Chamber of Commerce building yesterday, when he
spoke to the Peace Corps, he remarked cheerfully that he 'Never expected to get such a warm reception in this build
ing/
At
his press conference later,
he went out of
his
way
to
say he could not believe he was where the businessmen would like him to be and that they would be happier if there
were a Republican in the White House. These are things he

has never said about his Republican political opponents. "In his dialogue with the sulking tycoons, he says seri
.
ously that no matter what they do, he will have the last
Crisis
with Steel
word.
This gambit
recalls
an
earlier
Kennedy, the cam
paigning senator, who used to tell stubborn leaders in his own party that they had better because he was
go along
go
ing to win anyway."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI
moment
of decision
2,
came near
1 1
P.M.
TH
and
on Sunday
night, October
John Kennedy
1962. sat in his black chair at the center of
the coffin-shaped Cabinet table, its vast expanse of dark sullen In the hogany glow of the overhead neon
grill.
ma
He was neatly dressed: dark blue suit, blue tie, white shirt. He had just come from addressing the nation on television,
his face
was as somber as his clothes.
He and his brother Bob were in the Cabinet Room with a handful of aides, and they were following Negro James H. Meredith's enrollment at the University of
Mississippi.
Mississippi, of an open line that burned through the night. The tiny brass name plate on the arched leather back of Bob's chair
on the President's left, holding the phone which connected him with Nick Katzenbach, his Justice Depart ment deputy, who, in Oxford, held the other end
sat
Bob
read, "Secretary of the Treasury," but on this night the econ Dillon was not there. omy was not in crisis and
Douglas
In the
room
there was only the
sound of Bob's low
voice,
repeating the news as relayed by Katzenbach from his com mand post inside Ole Miss's Lyceum Building. Behind the President and his brother, seated along the
were the men who always seem to gather in moments of great or triumph despair: Ken O'Donnell, Larry O'Brien, Ted Sorensen. Burke Marshall, Bob's civil-rights assistant, was a newcomer to the inner circle.
wall,
Oxford, Mississippi
1 /7
These were the
vital minutes.
ford violence swirled. Over the
Around Katzenbach in Ox phone Bob could hear a rag
ged background of riot. It was a discouraging and stunning hour after weeks of the most careful effort to conduct a faultless, sympathetic cam
paign to register Meredith, to win for a United States citizen the rights that the Constitution guaranteed him.
Meredith, 29, was slight and shy; he was one of ten chil dren, the grandson of a slave, a nine-year veteran of the Air
Force.
He
took correspondence courses while in the service
Negro Jackson State College but de cided that he wanted "something more." Had "something more" been only education, he could have found it peace
later attended the
and
far
ably in literally hundreds of northern schools, most of them more creditable academically than Ole Miss. But Mere
dith^ "something more"
w as
r
There came
to the
White House the news
the cause of his people. that French re
porter Paul Guihard, Agence France-Presse, had been shot and killed. It was almost as if there had been the rattle of
small-arms
fire
across the
White House lawn. Then there
followed a
killed
and
that a Mississippi state trooper had been another frantic story that a United States marshal
rumor
had
in,
died.
it
Katzenbach passed each desperate report along as

trying to give the President
came
and
his brother the feel of
the
moment. There was a warning

minutes the
several
men
of a shortage of tear gas, and for in the Cabinet Room ached with
anxiety, as if they had been on the scene. Then the gas ar rived and over the phone the silent men could almost hear
the marshals pry open the
wooden
crates
and rush back
to
the dark night and the mob harangued by former Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, who had resigned from the Army after
cally
being admonished for wild right-wing talk and who ironi had been the commander of troops in Little Rock in
Earlier there had been Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett on the phone from his Jackson headquarters, pleading,
weaseling, almost wild, afraid, deceitful, crying out: "They're Can't you get him [Meresaying I sold out down here.
.
ojQ
dith] out of here? can't protect him."
.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
.
.
Get Meredith
off the
campus. ...
John Kennedy had talked on the phone, angry that he had learned that the Mississippi state troopers had left the scene the scene of the sullen mob on a southern campus and a lone Negro in his room on that same campus, waiting for day break so that he might enroll and break the color barrier in
the deepest southland, hate growing. "Listen, Governor," shouted the President of the United
States into the
until order
is
phone. "We're not moving anybody anywhere You are not discharging your restored.
.
responsibility, Governor. ..." Barnett whimpered again that he was trying. "You're just not," said Kennedy, "because the state police There is no sense in talk can't be found on the campus.
. .
There are lives you do your duty. I'm not in You fulfill your function. in jeopardy. a position to do anything, to make any deals, to discuss any thing until law and order is restored and the lives of the peo
ing any more
until
.
ple are protected. Good-bye." The President had slammed the

little
phone down. There was man. Through two tried the brothers had to come to terms with days Kennedy him. He had proposed deal after deal, only to back down and change his mind. He wanted Meredith to get on the campus, to be registered, but he did not want to be blamed for it. He wanted the federal forces to overwhelm him, but he did not
more
that could be said to such a
want trouble.
The plan
to bring
Meredith on the campus the Sunday be
fore he was to register had been worked out by Bob Ken r nedy and Barnett. It seemed good. The campus w as quiet on r the week end. The mob would probably sw ell on Monday,
since
it
had been widely publicized that Meredith was
to
register then.
Meredith had been flown to Oxford, escorted onto the
campus by state troopers and federal marshals (some 500 marshals had been flown in to help 200 troopers maintain order; 200 of the marshals were on the campus). Then the mob had formed, and suddenly the troopers had left. Barnett blamed his officers on the scene, claiming a mix-up in orders.
Oxford,, Mississippi
troopers came back but left again at a critical moment. Alone, the federal marshals could not quite handle the riot, which had begun to flare just as Kennedy had gone on
The
TV
to explain his position and appeal for peace in the South. There came a fateful fifteen minutes. The marshals,
with
seemed to Nick Katzenbach that the worst was over, but there were nine hours un til morning, and everybody w as near exhaustion. Nobody in the Lyceum Building knew what other outbreaks might come
their
new supply of
tear gas, held. It

r
out of the blackness of the campus. Katzenbach thought help should come from federal troops,
who had been staging for the emergency since

Kennedy
rose
Saturday.
from his chair in the Cabinet Room without saying a word. He walked across the green carpeting through secretary Evelyn Lincoln's office and into his own deserted office. It was clear now of all the TV gear from his talk. There he sat dow n and put in a call to Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance. Send the federal troops in, Kennedy ordered. Vance was ready; the w ord w ent out instantly. A company of federalized National Guardsmen who lived in Oxford began to move. The bulk of the troops were still off in Memphis, and it would take three hours for them to get to the scene. But the marshals held and the campus began to
r T r
quiet.
Kennedy
reports.
The
stayed in his office, listening to Katzenbach's report of two deaths was confirmed, the other
loss of life
were proved untrue. At 5:30 A.M. The federal troops were ar now. "I want to be called hand in the situation totally riving, if anything happens," Kennedy told his staff. And he walked
rumors of more
Kennedy decided to go to bed.
out into the daw n to get some sleep before he began a busy
r
White House day of routine
business.
There was some disappointment in the White House be cause there had been loss of life and damage to the univer the world could point to sity campus and because once again the fact that the United States government had to bring in fixed bayonets to give a Negro the same rights as all its other
citizens possessed.
And
there was criticism that
Kennedy had again
overintel-
lectualized the
problem and
had waited too long before ap-
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
plying the federal force that would have prevented an out
break of violence.
Who really knew?
Before the riot occurred, there was genuine concern that the sight of federal troops on the campus would have incited
even more violence. But there was also evidence on the day before that violence was almost inevitable. Burke Marshall,
who had been
in Oxford, flew back to Washington and re on Saturday afternoon that the United States marshals ported might not be able to handle the job if a mob of 20,000
formed, as the local authorities predicted.

the
Early on Sunday afternoon, with Meredith on the campus, mounting tension could be detected. Katzenbach warned
Yet everyone felt that the mar shals with the state troopers could maintain order. Why had Kennedy trusted Ross Barnett at all? The President had
the
it.
White House about
been warned even by southern legislators that the man could not be relied upon in such a hazardous undertaking. Actu ally, Kennedy did not trust him. But he was a governor of a
state of the
Union. Kennedy's whole strategy was based on a

approach through the local and
state authori
legal, patient
ties.
And up until Sunday there had been no violence. The thought of Little Rock and Eisenhower's precipitous dispatch of federal troops haunted the Kennedys. They felt
enough attention had been paid to the Little Rock it became necessary to send in the Army. The suddenness of the action had not only embittered the South but it had also shocked the rest of the United States and the w orld.
that not
situation before
year before, in Montgomery, Alabama, Bob Kennedy an all-night vigil had slowly applied pressure through United States marshals in a highly successful operation. Vio lence had been prevented, no troops had been needed. Ox ford was a more difficult case, but the preparations w ere even more painstaking, even more deliberate. Every legal means was explored and tried, and every appeal was made to the state and school. In the first attempts to bring Meredith on the campus when the gate had been blocked, the federal authorities had turned back. Until every other means had been exhausted, there was to be no force. For a week the game went on until the federal judges, w ho had ruled that
in
r r
The
Oxford, Mississippi
%21
Meredith must be allowed to attend the university, grew impatient with the federal delay. As the exhaustive search for a peaceful solution was re
ported to the nation, as Ross Barnett's tragic performance became clear to those who watched, the southern racists suf
fered an overwhelming setback. And this, in the long run, overshadowed every other aspect of the Oxford incident. Southern leaders, many of whom opposed integration, ad
mitted the fairness of Kennedy's approach. Some harshly criticized Barnett. Others turned away in disgust as they saw his crude tactics injure their cause. To some, Oxford promised to be the last serious convul
sion of determined southern resistance to integration.
r
At
least w hen it had been accomplished, when Meredith was was rela registered and attending classes, under guard, there
tively little bitterness across the South.
The
final result of the struggle
had never been
in
doubt
from the moment the federal court had ordered Meredith's admission. The full weight of the national government would
sooner or later be brought to bear on the problem. That was
inevitable.
The Kennedys
never worried about the
fact they
might
have to bring in troops. This was a possibility from the start. What they sought to avoid was to enroll Meredith by
bayonets directly. Even
if
to keep order, civil authorities up to the admission desk.
paratroopers had to line the streets w ere going to take the Negro
r
hours of the drama Barnett seemed to want to allow Meredith on the campus and then to have him forced off by the angry mob. Such a result would benefit Barnett twofold: it would purge him of the contempt-of-court charge he faced for not allowing Meredith on the campus; it would leave Ole Miss still a totally white school, and Barnett might to try again then. persuade Kennedy it was too dangerous
In the
final
Matters never worked out that way. The plan that was finally used appealed to the Kennedys for these reasons: Barnett could purge himself of the con
and thus tempt charge by allowing Meredith on the campus, an arrest to have not Barnett, the federal authorities would inflamaction which might have triggered a violent struggle,
ing the whole South and setting back the cause of real inte gration by years; Meredith could be registered by civil au
and Barnett could be calmed by being allowed to claim that he was forced to the wall by the overwhelming buildup of marshals and troops, thus salvaging some face in
thorities;
his red-neck league.

crises, however, like wars, rarely go off as This one was no exception. But when the tragedy of the moment had faded, there was no question that it had been a striking victory for the cause of integration, for the dignity of the law and for the cause of understanding and de
Plans for such
devised.
cency.
CHAPTER
W E ,V
TT
FIV E
BLOCKADE
Do
G days
set in
on the
New
Frontier in August and

as
September, Kennedy's popularity
George Gallup slumped
to 61, the lowest rating
measured by he
had received.
the nation's military strength had continued to grow and the world had stayed relatively calm through the first three-fourths of 1962, there was a lingering displeasure
Though
from the President's
steel action. It
had, by
New
Frontier
admission, spread further than anyone had anticipated. There seemed to be too many Kennedys in too many places huge doing too many wrong things at the wrong times.
formal party on the lawn of Bob Kennedy's Hickory Hill turned into a public-relations disaster when Ethel Kennedy
fell
in the
swimming pool and
Presidential Assistant
Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr., leaped in to help her while the guests
nearly everybody of any importance on the New Frontier ex cept the President and his wife laughed. So this was how Washington showed its concern over the stock market?
Teddy Kennedy's campaign

er's
in Massachusetts for his broth
old Senate seat smacked of an unconscionable power grab to many. Would the Kennedy family ever be satisfied?
Jackie extended her vacation in Ravello, Italy, from two weeks to four weeks and stories of her happy nighttime and
daytime ventures in the tiny town flooded American papers. To many in this country, caught in the late summer heat and dust, her vacation seemed not austere enough to fit the glum
CHAPTERT WEN TY -FIVE:

national feeling.
The talk for a quickie tax cut to spur the economy became more than talk. Kennedy was wary, but his economists were for it and the pressure mounted. But then there was Wilbur Mills, from Kensett, Arkansas. As Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which must originate all tax measures, he held the yes or no power. He said no, and kin
dling hopes for a tax cut faded out to promises for a tax reduc tion and reform effort in 1963.
Up on
the Hill,
New York
Senator Kenneth Keating kept
insisting that the Soviets were building Cuba into a military camp. Russian technicians and Russian equipment, including missiles, were pouring into the island, said Keating. Kennedy
was forced to act. First he summoned congressional leaders. "I wanted to acquaint you with what is taking place in Cuba which is not my favorite subject. We have a new CIA report." The men were told of the presence of 5,000 Russian technicians, antiaircraft missiles, PT boats with ship-to-ship missiles. But the buildup was strictly defensive, said Ken nedy. As long as it remained that way, this country planned
no action
against Cuba.
Some
of the
men
did not like the
news. Congressman Charles Halleck, GOP Minority Leader, could not understand how we could be so positive that the
weapons were only defensive. House Republican Whip Les lie Arends wondered about the Monroe Doctrine; the Soviet presence seemed like a clear violation of it.
The White House

facts
issued a statement with the
new Cuban
and the same assurances: the buildup wâs defensive, it would be watched. But for many the approach was too casual, Kennedy too
certain that the Russians
viet experts in the State
The So that out Department kept pointing the communists had never extended a nuclear capability be
w ould not
r
try something.
yond
their
own
lands.
Other top
if
officials
worried about what
Russia might do in Berlin
we
acted against Cuba. Kennedy
noted that
that
we had missiles in Turkey pointed at Moscow, we had thousands of military technicians in Vietnam.
facts
These
were true enough, but they seemed a

air.
little like
excuses for lack of courage. Charlie Halleck, the gut fighter, sniffed the
"Things
Blockade
92K
he said. "They Goddamned well need to do something and they aren't doing it." Kennedy tried again at his press conference. "If at any time the communist buildup in Cuba were to endanger or interfere with our security in any way ... or if Cuba should
just aren't right,"
ever attempt to export its aggressive purposes by force or the threat of force against any nation in this hemisphere, or become an offensive military base of significant capacity for
done
the Soviet Union, then this country will do whatever to protect its own security and that of its allies."
must be
Washington became oppressive for the President, and he welcomed the approach of the political season, the chance to get out around the land again. This was his source of strength.
He
felt that if
he could talk
to the people directly,
get his points across. looking at the country,
And he
always got a
lift
he could from just
watching and listening to the crowds.
Governor Pat Brown in his fight against Richard Nixon. He invaded West Virginia, the Monongahela Valley, New York, Pittsburgh, New Jersey and Michigan. He was trying to reverse tradition which pro duced off-year losses in Congress for the party in powder. He could not, he knew, transfer any of his own popularity. But he could stir up interest in the election, and if there was enough interest he felt that the Democratic party the ma would benefit. jority party Then came the dawn of October 14. In the high thin air
flew
r
He
w est
r
to help California's
over western
Cuba
the cameras in a U-2 reconnaissance plane
whirred and the tiny clusters of Russian military equipment below that were an embryonic medium-range ballistic mis sile site were recorded on film. There had been suspicious signs earlier, and Kennedy had ordered close surveillance, but in the days before October 14 bad weather had interfered
with high-level photography. And, the White House would confess to itself later, American intelligence was just a bit
drowsy. It had been lulled into that state by die constant assurances of the Soviet affairs experts in the State Depart ment that it was highly unlikely that the Russians would
take missiles outside
communist
land.
There was no prece
dent for such action and no indication they would change

their habits at this time.
<>
CHAPTER TWENTY -FIVE:
But the experts were wrong and now there was proof. The following day an alarmed team of photo interpreters hunched over a single picture that in the next weeks would become
famous, not for
ing made
ers in a
it
its
beauty, because the light of early

its
morn
gray,
but for
detail.
The Pentagon experts found eight large missile transport Cuban field. They discovered four missile erectortentative
firing
launchers already deployed in Missile-fuel vehicles were lined
positions.
up
nearby. Other pictures
were checked, and the beginning of another missile site was found. Even a Russian convoy just arriving at a site was cap
tured on the high-resolution film.
McGeorge Bundy had been told the shatter ing findings. By now he knew Kennedy well, and he knew that the President would demand uncontrovertible confirma
By
that night
tion before he acted
on such dismaying news. Bundy de
cided not to
Monday night. He asked the Central Intelligence Agency and Pentagon experts to keep at their work, to be as certain as they possibly could be
tell
the President that
of their facts by the next morning. The call from Lieut. Gen. Marshall Sylvester Carter, Dep uty Director of CIA, came early. Bundy was waiting at his
desk in the basement of the White House's west wing. The evidence was clear, Carter told him. There was no mistake.
Bundy
House
got up quickly, walked through the quiet White corridors, for it was still before 9 A.M., and took the
tiny elevator up to the President's private quarters. He strode into the bedroom where the President was finishing breakfast. The President looked up from his newspaper.
There was no noticeable change in his expression. There is at such times. But the President would acknowledge later that in addition to the gravest concern there had been great surprise he had not thought the Russians would make such a move. Kennedy's first question was about the authenticity of the information. Could they be sure? He wanted to see the pic tures himself. He wanted the surveillance flights over Cuba stepped up and he wanted the pictures checked and rechecked. And he asked Bundy to round up the top security men in the administration for later in the morning. The whole thing, he
never
Blockade
would have to be closely held. For a few minutes before Bundy left, the two of them con sidered what the United States should do if the evidence was
cautioned,
it
irreversibly confirmed, would be.
and deep down both men knew that

there
From
this
moment Kennedy was convinced
w ould
r
this country. His and Bundy's was that the United States probably would have to bomb the missile sites and the bombers to destroy them and wipe out the military threat to this country. The two men talked quietly in one of those vital moments of his tory; there was more of the scholar than the soldier in both of them. The scene w as a symbol of the times two men, one forty-five the other forty-three, setting in motion and shap ing in a few calm minutes a chain of events that might alter civilization. Fortunately, the full weight of such times is not
have to be strong action from
initial reaction
ate
by the men, because they are too engaged in the immedi problem. Though the reality of finding missiles in Cuba produced a profound shock in Kennedy, he was not fully without blue
felt
prints for action against the island. Following the discovery of the defensive arsenal, the New Frontier thinkers had be
gun
open to them should more profound trouble arise. In the Pentagon was a plan for invading Cuba prepared after the Bay of Pigs and
to consider the various forms of responses
kept current since then.
Kennedy and Bundy both knew
that this
would be a
criti
cal test of the country, of the administration, of themselves the one they had been preparing for in two crisis-ridden
years.
Would
first
Memories of the Bay of Pigs had not faded fully. the government work smoothly this time? In those
minutes of Kennedy's involvement in the Cuban crisis he resolved that this time it would work properly. This time the challenge was real. At 10:30 he was at his desk, and General Carter, a photo analyst and Bundy were hovering at his elbows as he pored
over the sheaf of pictures. Carter filled in the President briefly on his conclusions drawn from the detailed study of
the pictures that had gone on all night. The technician care fully pointed out the telltale pieces of evidence that could be
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE:
fitted together like a puzzle.
At
1 1
.*45
the
men
the President
had summoned began
to
gather in the Cabinet Room. One by one they hurried through the door, walked silently across the thick carpet and
far end of the table were the pictures. Gen was there with two photo experts, and again he went through the explanation. The collection of men in the room was notable. They had
took
seats.
At the
eral Carter
been hand-picked by Kennedy, and they represented the men whom he put his reliance for conducting this country's se curity affairs. Over the next two weeks they were to be in al most constant session, either as a full group or as splinter units. These were the men who would form the backbone of
in
Kennedy's team: Lyndon Johnson,

uty Gilpatric;
McNamara and
his
dep
Dean Rusk and Under
Secretary Ball and
Assistant Secretary of State for Latin

r
Douglas Dillon; Taylor, now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Sorensen and Bundy. Those who joined later were UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson; another McNamara assistant, Paul Nitze; CIA Director John McCone, who was represented at first by
Secretary of State Alexis Johnson; Llewellyn former ambassador to Moscow; and Admiral Thompson, George Anderson, Chief of Naval Operations. As Carter spoke, the room was quiet. There were no
Carter;
smiles.
America Ed Bob Kennedy; General Maxwell
Martin;
Under
When
men
to
that quick
the photo briefing was done, Kennedy told the and decisive action was necessary. He turned
that they prepare specific
Rusk and McNamara and asked
recommendations.
He
poured out questions about United
States military preparedness and he repeated his desire for the closest possible surveillance. Kennedy asked for the deep
Whenever possible, normalcy should be feigned. would Kennedy go on with his White House appointments, and his plans to campaign that very week end, and a spectacu lar jet-plane trip from coast to coast would go forward, at least for the time being. Those w ho watched John Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs and again on October 16, 1962, found him a far different President on the second occasion. He knew the men around him they w ere all his choices. Taylor and Anderson, the two top military minds, had been
est secrecy.
r
Blockade
appointed by him just that year. The top rung of CIA which had planned the Bay of Pigs were all gone. McCone and Carter were Kennedy men. Bob Kennedy was in this crisis from the beginning. So was Sorensen. The deputies of Rusk
and McXamara were there so that in each department there would be some knowledge in depth of the details of the plan.
The
failure to coordinate, the lack of inner
communica
tion, had helped doom the Bay of Pigs. This time the Presi dent was determined to prevent it. "On that very first morn ing," said one aide intimately connected w ith the crisis, "the President gathered all the threads together in his hands and
r
he held them."
Kennedy kept
that each
in touch with each
man and made
certain
man kept in touch with him. This was generally taken care of by assembling the crisis task force and letting every man say what he wanted to say before the whole group.
Then began
corridors of the
a frantic and clandestine week in the back
White House, in the Pentagon, in the State Department. There were hushed phone conversations be tween Kennedy and Rusk, Kennedy and McXamara. There w ere the constant comings and goings in the White House. Bob Kennedy was there almost as much as the President. To avoid detection, the men had to adapt Indian tricks. Abnormal collections of big, black cars were to be avoided.
r
ten of the top officers of the United States a in car to ride from the State Department to the single piled White House, the scene being much like a Marx Brothers
(On one evening
movie.) Back doors were used. Beards were shaved despite all-night work. Normal greetings were given and normal
clothes
worn and, when possible, normal schedules kept. There were some breaks going for Kennedy. For one thing, the White House press corps was in total disarray because of the political campaign. They were dispatched on Fridays with duffel bags packed, and then through Saturday and Sun day there ensued a dusty race across America to listen to Kennedy on stump, to look in the faces of the voters and to write it all down and send it out before they enplaned for the next stop. It was a job which drained all physical and mental energy. They struggled back to Washington on Mon
day and collapsed for two days
at
home, returned to the
o aQ
in time to get their new marching orders. What few hours they had between planes were spent in talking to politicians about the candidates and the districts that they would encounter during the coming week end. Not only was
White House
the regular White House group so employed, but they were joined by virtually every other reporter of stature around
ber
the capital as the focus of national interest shifted to Novem 6. Other newsmen preceded Kennedy to the crucial po
litical
areas or
came
after
him
to
sample his
effect
on
the
populace.
Politics, the natural love of journalists
and
states
men, was the consuming interest. The men simply could not cover the world and the campaign together. The normal White House staff members and State Department and Penta gon sources who were consulted regularly on Berlin or on Vietnam or Cuba were forgotten at this season. Thus, the men deeply involved in the Cuban crisis had a rare freedom from
the prying press. Early in the Cuban planning the established.
list
of possibilities was
1. The United States could launch a full-scale invasion and conquer the island, destroying the missile sites. But what of those Russians and their equipment? What would the So viet response be? What would it have to be? 2. There could be an attack from the air. No nation on earth was more proficient at pinpoint bombing. The missiles and their launching complexes could be destroyed. But again, what of the Russians who would inevitably be killed in such
an operation? but it offered 3. A blockade was technically an act of war, the opportunity of showing force without taking lives and it
did not prevent one of the more drastic acts later
to
if it
failed
persuade the Soviet Union that we meant business. After the first day of deliberation, this alternative became the most
attractive.
could deliver an ultimatum to the Russians to get and bombers out, put a time limit on it and for their response. But why would Nikita wait prayerfully
4.
We
their missiles
Khrushchev believe us now more than he had believed our determination in the weeks before? He had, after all, been saying that the western powers would not fight, that they had
Blockade
921
become weak and too much enthralled with their easy life over such a minor irritation. could do nothing. We 5. There w ere endless combinations of the above suggestions. Almost from the start the question of negotiation was raised. Suppose the Russians wanted to talk the problem over? What was our negotiating position? Could we offer anything? We were already planning to dismantle our soft missile sites in Turkey when our undersea Polaris forces were of such strength as to allow it. This was a possibility. For the time being, however, that was left in the background. Our first action had to be decided, and more and more the blockade appealed to Kennedy and the men around him. We could poise our forces for an invasion, throw a cordon of ships into the Caribbean to halt any new shipments of offensive weap ons and demand the dismantling of the missiles and their removal along with the bombers. Our Navy was the mighti est afloat, and the Caribbean was our water. If the Russians chose to challenge us on the seas, victory in a limited battle was assured. No one who talked to Kennedy in these hours thought the Russians wanted to go beyond that and risk nu
to risk it
T
clear war.
On
trated
Tuesday and Wednesday the planning was concen in the Pentagon and the State Department. Kennedy,
stage, flew off for half a day's
r
on center
necticut.
campaigning in Con
Near 9 P.M. he returned and w as met at the airport by Ted Sorensen and his brother, who rode w ith him back to the White House. In the meantime another meeting of his
r
in progress in the State Department. U-2's continued to prowl the upper atmosphere. As the pic tures piled up by the hundreds, so did the evidence of the
task force
r
w as
audacity and speed of the Soviet move. sites Frantically the Russians were rushing to complete six for MRBM's, four missiles to a site. The photo technicians
size,
positively identified the missiles
when
they spotted tailfms
sticking out from under tarpaulins.
the fins of the
MRBM's
May Day parade that pable of reaching 1,200 miles
They were identical to photographed in Moscow in the ca year. The MRBM missiles were
to Houston, St. Louis or
000
CHA PTER T W
EN T Y
V E
Washington with their one-megaton warheads. On October 17 the faint scars in the Cuban earth revealed launch construction for intermediate-range missiles. These monsters could fire 2,500 miles and reach and destroy any American city. The intelligence men found three IRBM sites (four missiles each) under construction and another
undoubtedly planned. In late September huge crates coming into Cuba on Soviet ships had been photographed, and the intelligence experts thought they might contain IL-28 (Beagle) jet bombers. Now that hunch was confirmed when the crates were broken open and assembly of some of the bombers begun. Forty-two unassembled bombers had been delivered to the island, the
meticulous photo analysts concluded. All Russian equipment w as catalogued in the greatest de
r
tail,
r
w ere new MIG-2i's,
fall. There These fighter-intercep tors were equipped with air-to-air missiles. There w ere older MIG-i5's also, which the Soviet Union had given to Cuba
some of
it
having been photographed in early

called Fishbeds.
The torpedo boats \vith their ship-to-ship missiles that had been detected before October 14 were rephotographed. Coast defensive missiles \vere found emplaced along
earlier.
key beach areas. The existence of Soviet ground battle groups was discovered, each fully equipped with assault guns, tanks, tactical rockets, antitank weapons and motorized infantry car
riers.
The
estimates of Russian troops

crisis
and technicians would
climb before the
subsided from 5,000 to 22,000 on the the basis of unerring camera lenses. In Russian camp sites the photographs even showed delicate stone and flower mo
they never got an actual picture of a nuclear the warhead, Pentagon analyzers felt certain that they had photographs of the trucks which brought the warheads to the
missile sites.
saics of the unit insignia.
And though
The
By
missiles
pace of emplacement of the
MRBM's
was staggering.
the day, by the hour, the emplacements grew,
more
of the
became ready to fire. The bigger, more complex IRBM's were believed to be, not on the island, but in the holds of some of the eighteen dry-cargo ships then steaming for Cuba. But the construction of their sites leaped ahead.
Blockade
999
The mobility of the entire operation was dazzling. What did it all mean? Kennedy pondered the bigger ques tions when he had time between the details. Why had the So
viet
Chairman attempted such deception? He had assured
the world
when
the antiaircraft missiles were found that he
was intent only in providing Cuba with a defensive complex. Other Russians had brought the same word. Twice within little more than a year Khrushchev had attempted to deceive
Kennedy. At Vienna he had declared piously that the Soviet Union would not resume nuclear testing until the United States did so. All the time his technicians had been busy in preparing the greatest series of explosions that the world had seen. Now he was still mouthing his hopes for peace, still de
claring his innocent intentions in Cuba. Was this a test probe for pressure on Berlin?
tion was
The
sugges
Perhaps Khrushchev planned to see if he could get away with em placement of the missiles. If the United States did nothing but voice its anger, then maybe the screws could be turned on
made
to
Kennedy by
his Kremlinologists.
But that did not seem quite on target to Kennedy. His experts calculated that the cost to Russia for such a tremendous operation was near a billion dollars. The Rus sian economy could hardly stand such an expenditure unless
Berlin?
the purpose was even greater.
Gradually Kennedy became convinced that Khrushchev had gambled heavily to tilt the balance of power in his favor, or
at least to
make it seem so
myth
to the
w orld.
f
had a missile gap over us had disappeared long ago. The United States had 150 inter continental missiles ready and aimed at the heart of Russia, which had at best 75 ICBM's ready to fire toward America. By the end of the year the United States would have 200 ICBM's and, of course, there were more than 100 Polaris missiles in submarines and they were, in effect, ICBM's. The Russian MRBM's and the IRBM's planned for Cuba would be a factor in the nuclear straggle. Khrushchev obviously had
old
that the Soviets
The
hoped
to get the missiles in place tection, then to confront Kennedy
without United States de and the world with the
accomplished fact. He might even have done it casually in the United Nations General Assembly, which he had hinted
OQ4
he might attend. Ironically, a meeting had been arranged between Kennedy and Andrei Gromyko for late on Thursday afternoon. Gromyko was to fly back to Moscow on October 21, and he wanted a final talk with Kennedy so that he could relay Kennedy's thoughts to Khrushchev.
The President planned to say nothing to Gromyko about Cuba. Secrecy was still vital until the United States was
ready to
Kennedy would let Cuba come up naturally in main subject w ould be Berlin, which seemed to be more on the minds of the international politi cians than any other subject. Since calls on Kennedy by Gro
act.
the discussions, but the
myko were
despite
its
getting almost routine, this one caused little stir rather unusual length of two hours and fifteen
their aides
minutes.
The two men and
met
in the Oval
Room
and,
indeed, Berlin was the immediate topic.
Gromyko was tough
and even threatening. He shrugged Cuba off, told Kennedy that the buildup there was defensive. This conversation sup ported Kennedy's growing conviction that there would be no connection between Soviet action in Berlin and in Cuba. The Russians would apply the pressure in Berlin no matter w hat
T
we did
in the Caribbean.
tember 13
Kennedy read portions of his Sep statement on Cuba to be sure Gromyko w as aware
r
of his pledge to act against
an offensive
threat.
Gromyko
left,
After dinner Kennedy's
men
trooped in for
a long and important meeting. Kennedy sat in his rocking chair and the others took the seats around him. By now the
focus was
serious advocates of an invasion.
on the blockade. There were no The surprise air strike was labeled a "Pearl Harbor" and rejected. The blockade pro
coming
to rest
move
vided the flexibility that Kennedy wanted. From it he could to another response, depending on the Russian reac
tion. It also
gave the Russians a chance to back out, a leew ay that Kennedy always tried to allow when dealing with them.
He
never wanted to force them into a corner where their

led the
only actions could be to fight or surrender.
McNamara
Thursday night meeting because a
blockade would be primarily his responsibility. He reviewed the military preparation that would be needed and the readi-
Blockade
o oK
some of which had been alerted since finished, there seemed little Tuesday. the blockade would that be the best move. Since Ken doubt nedy, however, did not w ant to decide finally on Thursday night, he left the decision hanging. But everything was draw ing together and everyone was working on the blockade plan. The President was scheduled to begin his week-end politi cal marathon the next day, and he thought briefly about the whole campaign. His decision was quick and simple. After this trip, there would be no more politics. "The campaign is we've lost anyway. over," he told his aides. "This blows it were about Cuba." They [the critics] right Cuba had become an issue in many areas. Democrats who
ness of the forces,
When McMamara
r
hitched their campaigns to Kennedy were hard put to ex plain away his inaction. They could only turn away from the
knew best. The opposition could wave the flag and demand some action much against the communists ninety miles from our shore as Kennedy had done against Nixon in 1960. Now, Kennedy
issue
and
say that in such matters the President
felt,
with the worst about Cuba being confirmed,
many
of
the Democratic candidates were apt to be defeated. There was no better example than the Senate race in Indiana,
where the incumbent Republican, Homer Capehart, wâs cry ing for an invasion of Cuba. The young Democratic hopeful, Birch Bayh, had stayed with Kennedy, accused Capehart, with some effort, of warmongering. What would happen now that Capehart had been proved right? It seemed, at the White House at least, that Bayh was doomed.
Kennedy took only things. He had become

"I've never seen a
the briefest time to consider such

totally
immersed
in the
Cuban
crisis.
man
so fully engaged,"
McGeorge Bundy
was
to
comment w eeks
r
later.
cally,
Kennedy walked through his routine appearances physi but his mind was never there. There were still mo
ments of rather grim humor, but there was never anger. "You can't afford anger with your enemies," said one White House man. The President became like a defense attorney. Every wit ness who came before him was questioned exhaustively to see if there was a weakness in his testimony. This would not be a
o (\
i
Bay of Pigs
the
it.
human
mentality in the White House
could prevent
Security remained tight, much to Kennedy's amazement. The circle of men who knew what was about to happen was
widening now and would soon get bigger. Yet no one sus pected. Some of the men involved, keeping luncheon dates
with reporters so as not to arouse suspicions, talked through the meals about matters w hich had now become trivial.
r
When
osity,
them had told their wives at the beginning. Most of the group had told their wives, including John Kennedy. The wômen behaved magnificently, not one of them breaking security, and all of them w ho knew what was happening tried to keep their fam w ould suspect ily life normal so that children and friends
asked some of the
r
the crisis had passed, Bundy, to satisfy his men involved how many of
own
curi
nothing. In fact, Bundy learned from his postcrisis sampling that those men who had not told their wives had made a mis
sensing the enormousness of the problem by the all-night absences of their husbands, became far more upset than those who did know.
take.
The women,
Before Kennedy flew off to campaign on Friday, he met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Monday night was chosen as the time to spring the trap. Kennedy would go on TV and
r
reveal the whole story. Sorensen was ordered to start work on his speech. In case information leaked out before, there
w as
r
a contingency plan to make the announcement on Sun day night. But the extra day was needed if security could be kept over the week end.
Kennedy was only fifteen minutes late starting on his cam paign week end, hardly anything to raise the eyebrows of the traveling press w ho had waited hours on other occasions
T
for the habitually tardy President. Hundreds of thousands of Cleveland's unsuspecting peo ple lined the motorcade route w hich took Kennedy from the
r
airport to Public Square in the heart of Cleveland. "So these are the issues of this campaign," Kennedy shouted. "Hous
kind of tax program w e wirite in the coming ." kind of assistance \ve provide for education. the session, Behind every speaker's stand there was a phone linked to
ing, jobs, the
r
. .
the
White House. There were phones
in the cars
and
in his
Blockade
jet.
He was never more than seconds out of touch. Each chance he got he talked with his men who now were nearing
the action phase of the
Cuban
plan.
The
It
land lay calm and beautiful in Springfield, Illinois. was the kind of prairie day that Abraham Lincoln would
have liked. There was the warmth of Indian summer, a paleblue sky with wispy clouds that filtered the sun. The pas tures were turning brown and the oaks and maples dropped
their leaves in the stillness.
to Lincoln's tomb, which broods on a prairie he gained some strength from that pause to Perhaps honor Lincoln. He squinted up at the bronze face on the stringy figure sitting above the doorway. Inside, he placed a wreath on the tomb and stood a moment in silence as taps
hill.
Kennedy went
sounded.
Mid-America, weathered and

field State Fair
solid,
filled
the
Spring
Grounds
livestock pavilion.
The
roar they
gave Kennedy when he arrived was a tonic, whether he had his heart in his work or not. "In the last twenty-one months
by any means, solved the farm problem/ Ken "But said. we have achieved the best two-year advance nedy ." in farm income of any two years since the depression. He flew on to Chicago, and then it became clear that he would have to cut his campaign short. The President's coun sel was needed too often now to handle the crisis by phone. It was the only time during the thirteen-day crisis period He that Kennedy's aides felt he had become "unplugged. the back on to decided to fly following morning, Washington but first he would need an excuse. He could say he had de veloped a cold. It was a rainy, cold night in Chicago, more of the same weather was promised for the next day, which
we have
not,
was to be a day of outdoor campaigning. Perhaps the story
would be believed by the harassed press corps. That night he spoke to the faithful at McCormick Place, and afterward, when he went down in the basement to talk to 3,500 precinct workers, he even managed some humor.
Harking back to his eyelash victory in Illinois, he said: "I and there just want to see who did it last November, 1960,
they are.
lieved
it.
They
said terrible things about you, but I never be I hope that you will do the same for Congressman
o Q

...
Sid Yates.
I understand that Mayor Daley plans to keep locked here until November 6, then turn you loose." you up Next morning the correspondents were hastily summoned,
and the bulletin about the President's "cold" and plans to return to Washington were given out. Reporters in Washington were far more suspicious than
those traveling with the President. The weather was miser able in Chicago and, as a matter of fact, the week before Kennedy had canceled an appearance in Red Cloud, Min
nesota, because of similar weather. It was true that he had a hard day of outdoor campaigning ahead of him, and he had always had trouble with his throat. Weary correspondents, not relishing the remainder of this trip, easily persuaded
go back
themselves that Kennedy did have a cold and that he should to the capital.
They looked
stone Hotel.
in such cold,
closely as
He wore a raincoat and a
he came out of the Sheraton-Blackhat, both unusual even
wet weather. But reporters who watched con
fessed they could not detect the signs of a cold.
Kennedy's staff became jumpy about security. On the jet back to Washington Larry O'Brien glanced out at the press contingent in the back of the President's plane and wondered to Kenny O'Donnell, "Will they swallow that cold story?"
They did at least long enough to matter. The national security task force came back
Office in the
mansion
as the
to the Oval sun settled across the Potomac.
Kennedy made the almost-final decision on the blockade, which was to be called a "quarantine/* It could still be changed, but the chances of a change were slim. It now had everyone's approval. A blockade would put our prestige on the line, backed with force. We would not alienate our allies, both in Europe and Latin America, by an abrupt military action, and we might even win their endorsement. The blockade also gave Khrushchev time to consider his own
course of action.
ful step
Kennedy looked up at the men around him then, the fate now taken. "The worst course of all w ould be to do
f
nothing," he said.
The
the
first
phrase caught the ear of Sorensen. Already he had draft of the speech done and the President now
TV
Blockade
ogg
took some time to go over it, making suggested changes as he went. Sorensen went back to his desk and worked through the night. The next draft of the speech contained a new
all would be to do nothing." began to be detected. Military alerts became known. Leaves were canceled, units prepared to move and maneuvers called off. The Washington press
sentence
"The worst
course of
crisis
Now
the ripples of
corps got the scent. Washington Post reporters and executives were called away from Saturday night social engagements, and a frantic tele
New
phone campaign began to try to unlock the mystery. The York Times' Kenworthy, just back from vacation, went to Bureau Chief Reston's home and the two spent the night on the phone searching for clues.
Still,
security held. Friends told friends,

this
'Td
like to
help
you, but
time
just can't."
On Sunday morning
the
story of crisis. But the paper did not and said it did not kno\v.
Washington Post bannered the tell what the crisis was
There lingered in Kennedy's mind even at this time some thoughts about an air strike against the missile sites. Should there be something more than a quarantine? Sunday morn ing Kennedy summoned his top military men, and this time
General Walter C. Sweeney,
Jr.,
head of the Tactical Air
Command, came along. Kennedy wanted to know how quickly and how accurately our planes could knock out the Soviet missiles. Was there a danger that some of the missiles might be fired before we could destroy them all? The precise estimates of the military men remain secret, but Kennedy
was told that there was the possibility the Russians could
and would launch some of the MRBM*s at this country in the few minutes between the time our planes attacked and the end of their mission. With this information, Kennedy abandoned any idea of an air attack as an initial move against Cuba.
In the afternoon
in the mansion.
Kennedy
final
called his
men back
into session
The
approval of the quarantine, out
lined in detail by Admiral George Anderson, was given by the President. The speech that the President would give
was studied word by word.
The complex and
lengthy chain

and diplomatic moves preceding the public statement was worked out. Congressional leaders, now scat tered across the country, were to be flown back to be briefed.
of political
The
to
President's Cabinet was to

told; a special briefing
be
be called in. Our allies were was to be held for members of
the Organization of
call
sies
American States. Kennedy planned to Macmillan, Eisenhower, Truman and Hoover. Embas had to be alerted, heads of state written to.
Monday was a mild fall day. Gardeners raked the falling leaves into big piles on the White House lawn. Tourists loitered along the streets, peering in at the mansion. But
w ere aware
T
there was a sense of foreboding. By now all the newspapers of a crisis, but it was still formless. Some had
first layer of security and were aware that had been detected in Cuba. This story was not
penetrated the
missiles
printed, however,
press corps. doubt until
when the White House appealed to the But what Kennedy planned to do remained in near the time he announced his intention.
On Pennsylvania Avenue pickets hoisted conflicting plac ards in a strange side drama. "Cuba Can Be Negotiated," read one. "More Courage and Less Profile," read another.
hundred newsmen filled Salinger's office when he announced that the President had asked the TV networks
More than
for time at 6 P.M.
Military jets flashed across the country, bringing the con gressional leaders. Louisiana's Congressman Hale Boggs was
found in the Gulf of Mexico fishing and was hoisted ashore in a helicopter and put on a plane for Washington. Califor nia's Senator Thomas Kuchel put on crash helmet and flying suit and sped 2,300 miles in four hours in the cockpit of a
Navy jet. There was an uneasy moment when a rumor arose that Andrei Gromyko was going to say something about Cuba. Had the Russians found out? Gromyko w as to leave Idlewild for Moscow, and before stepping on the plane he met re porters. The White House sent a man to listen to the Russian. He said good-bye and flew back home. The White House con
T
hurried to a phone to call in his calming report. France's Charles de Gaulle and Germany's Konrad Aden auer received advance notice from former Secretary of State
tact
man
Blockade
Dean Acheson, who was sent by Kennedy as a courtesy. The Latin diplomats were summoned to the State Department. At 3 P.M. Kennedy's task force met for a final review of the plan. At 4 the complete Cabinet heard from Dean Rusk and
the President of the national
crisis
and the action
to come.
Kennedy had
Minister
to attend to a ceremonial duty: greeting Prime Milton Obote of Uganda. At 5 P.M. Kennedy
looked around
him
at the congressional leaders. "I think
you
ought to know what we are going to do here," said the Presi dent. CIA's McCone unraveled the facts which, at first,
shocked the
men
into silence.
There was
dissent,
however,
when
the plan for the quarantine was revealed. Georgia's Senator Richard Russell, chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, felt that
we should invade Cuba and

all.
clean out the mess once and for

tion to Castro
There could be no solu
and communism
in this hemisphere until that
was done, he said. He was supported by William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Ken nedy listened, but there was to be no change in plans. His mind was made up. At 5:30 both in the Kremlin and in Washington the Rus sians were told. Then it was nearly time for Kennedy to tell the American people. He gave his hair a swipe or two with a brush, walked to his
desk, straightened the sheets of his speech. "Good evening, my fellow citizens. This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the So
viet military build-up on the island of Cuba. Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a
series of offensive missile sites
.
is
now
in preparation
on that
. this secret, swift and extraordinary imprisoned island in an area well known to missiles of communist build-up
.
have a special and
historical relationship to the
United States
and the nations of the western hemisphere, in violation of Soviet assurances, and in defiance of American and hemi
spheric policy
strategic
this
weapons
for the
sudden, clandestine decision to station is first time outside of Soviet soil
a deliberately provocative
and
unjustified change in the status
quo which cannot be accepted by this country, if our courage and our commitments are ever to be trusted again by either
CHAPTER
friend or foe,
.
.
.
TWENTY
V E
To
halt this offensive build-up, a strict

initiated.
quarantine on
all
is
offensive military
being Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations/' The sights and sounds and feelings of wartime were in the nation. The First Armored Division, "Old Ironsides" which had won fame at Anzio moved stealthily 1,300 miles from its Camp Hood, Texas, base to Fort Stewart, Georgia, where it groomed itself for an amphibious assault. Florida beaches
f
ment
to
Cuba
...
equipment under ship I call upon Chairman
missile launchers. Flight after flight of jets streaked into Homestead Air Force Base from their Califor
bristled with
nia and Colorado bases.
The
families of the
men who man
Guantanarao, our naval base on the eastern tip of Cuba, were put on a ship and brought back to the United States.
Some
of the
men, busy preparing the base
defenses, learned
about the evacuation when they returned to their quarters to find their families leaving. If Khrushchev had any doubts
now,
all
he had
to
do was look
at the
the southeastern United States.
An amphibious and
assembling arsenal in airborne
army
and 1,000 airplanes sent twenty-six ships to form a picket fence around Cuba, kept 150 ships in reserve. The White House now took a few breaths and waited.
of five divisions,
12,000 Marines
was ready, just in
case.
The Navy
ecutive
Kennedy's security task force was given a formal name (Ex Committee of the National Security Council) and a
formal meeting time (10 A.M. every day). Salinger issued his voluntary code of discretion and caution in handling news,
so as not to injure the national cause.
Twice a day now Air Force

over
ioi's
Cuba below
a thousand feet.
And
and Navy FSU's roared the news from their

r
pictures was that construction was going forward. So detailed were the low-level photographs that Russian soldiers w ere
caught on the run trying to reach antiaircraft guns. But our planes were too fast and too low to be detected in time.
Organization of American States, after meeting all day Tuesday, approved by 19 to o a resolution authorizing the use of force, individually or collectively, to enforce the
quarantine.
The
The United
States cited the
Rio Pact of 1947
Blockade
for its legal authority, and Kennedy waited for the OAS action before signing the quarantine proclamation. The en dorsement, and that of our other allies, firmer than we had
dared hope
for,
was a
solid jolt to the Soviets,
who were hop
ing for diplomatic confusion.
At 7:06 P.M. on October 23 Kennedy signed the proclama

tion for the quarantine to go into effect at 10 A.M. the next day. The unsmiling President three times asked a lighting technician what date it was. He quickly scrawled "John
Fitzgerald Kennedy"; then he got
up and walked away with
out a word.
the Black Sea to the Atlantic fringes of the west ern hemisphere the prying eyes of American reconnaissance
From
planes watched the oncoming ships with their suspected mis

sile cargoes.
The ships held their now began to build in

T
Tuesday night, and tension White House. For a few hours Kennedy and his strategists thought that they would have to sink a ship or tw o to prove to the Russians that they meant
courses
the
business.
ferences
Whenever he could, Kennedy broke from the endless con and paced up and down on the open porch outside
his office, inhaling the clear fall air.
On
the south lawn
Pushinka, the Russian space pup, a present from Khrushchev, romped with Charlie, Caroline's terrier. At least there was
pleasant coexistence on one level.
security officers became more concerned about the protection of the President. Patrol cars lurked at the corners
The
of the grounds after dark. Motorcycle officers cruised con news photographer tinuously around the eighteen acres. set up a long telephoto lens for a view of the rear White
House lawn, and a policeman came up
to
look. "I just wanted to be sure there were said the officer.
him and asked to no cross-hairs,"
Before tourists were admitted to the White House, they were asked to check packages and cameras. Large women's handbags were investigated and the checked packages were run through a fluoroscope which was hastily set up in a trailer
outside the
White House's east wing. Evacuation plans for the President and a skeleton govern-

number
ment were reviewed and updated. Salinger called in a select of newsmen and told them they had been picked to
go with the President in case of attack. They were to keep the White House switchboard informed of their where abouts. Plans for running the government from underground were discussed. In one of the back halls a door opened and a man's voice drifted into the corridor: "The area is beneath several hundred feet of rock, there is plenty of room and a
cafeteria.
.
."
Kennedy had time for some routine business which had been forgotten during the previous week. The paper pipe line with its never-ending current had been, for the first time in two years, almost totally plugged. It had backed up
into a sizable reservoir.
The
stream began to flow again with
postmaster appointments, disaster relief money, tions and all the other trivia of government.
proclama
There was even time for the President to attend a small dinner which Jackie gave for the Maharajah and Maharani of Jaipur, who had entertained the First Lady on her Indian
trip.
Some 48,000 telegrams poured

the
first
into the
White House
in
days following Kennedy's speech. They sup ported him in the ratio of 10 to i, a gratifying endorsement. But more than telegrams from sympathetic Americans was
TV
needed.
Then
The crisis remained. The Soviet ships bore on. the first break came. One by one the ships suspected
more missiles and bombers swung in wide arcs and headed back toward Asia. The dialogue began between Moscow and Washington. It first came in response to a proposal by U Thant, Secretary General of the United Nations, who proposed that there should be a two- or three-week suspension of the arms ship ments and the blockade *v hile negotiations w ere held. Khru shchev was quick to accept, but the United States, fearful of losing the initiative she had gained, turned the suggestion down. In the meantime our UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson
of carrying
r
r
took the incriminating photographs of the Soviet missile sites to the Security Council and confronted Russia's Valerian
UN
Zorin with them.
Blockade
On
the
Friday morning two destroyers, ironically one of them

P.
USS "Joseph
Kennedy,
Jr./'
named
II,
for the President's
older brother killed in World
War
the other the
USS
"John R. Pierce/' halted the Russian-chartered Lebanese freighter "Marucla," boarded her and found sulphur, paper and trucks. After coffee with her Greek skipper, the board
U.S. ing party cleared her to proceed through the cordon of
urged the United States to avoid confrontation of Soviet ships and he asked Khrushchev to keep his ships out of the quarantine zone. Both agreed, but Kennedy drew attention to the Soviet of the weap presence in Cuba and said that the withdrawal
Navy vessels. There came a new appeal from
Thant.
He
ons was of "great urgency." There was more talk now about
because the Russians were
missile sites.
possibilities
still
new
action against
Cuba
Newspapers began to print of an invasion or an air strike.
working feverishly stories about the
on the
Friday night the teletypes in the State Department clat tered out a secret letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy; it was to open an amazingly frank and free-flowing exchange be tween the Kremlin and Washington, a new and highly en
On
couraging development in cold- war diplomacy. was Beyond that, the tone of the letter was important. "It
a plea for peace
aide.
The Chairman had
almost eloquent/' said one White House WTitten of the vast progress his
r
to his land, the United people had made and of the tragedy w ould bring. He asked war States and the world that nuclear for coolness and reason, for he feared events were
Kennedy
it was not stated specifically, getting out of control. Though the letter offered to withdraw the offensive weapons under United Nations supervision in return for an end to the block
ade and assurances that Cuba would not be invaded. The men in the White House were first amazed, then
was hope, they felt, when the guardedly jubilant. There a letter so drastically contrasting write could leader Russian last At with his previous style. Kennedy seemed to have found in Khrushchev the feeling that he had sought at Vienna but had not discovered a feeling of the horror of nuclear
war.
the
The euphoria was soon dispelled. men gathered to draft a reply to

Moscow
that
letter,
Saturday morning, as
the Khrushchev letter,
the news flashed from
another
the text
Khrushchev had just sent of which was broadcast there. It had
not yet been transmitted to the State Department over the
government wires. Now, as had been expected, Khrushchev wanted to trade the Cuban missile bases for our missile bases in Turkey. The suggestion was unacceptable. That had been decided earlier. But the Kennedy strategists were baffled for a short while about what to do. They now had to answer two letters with conflicting offers. The solution was to issue immediately a short statement indirectly but plainly turning down the missile swap and go on drafting a reply to
Khrushchev's private
letter
almost as
if
his
second
letter
had not been written. The Russian maneuver was disturbing and unfathomable. Did the switch in terms indicate a Kremlin power struggle? No one knew for the moment just what Khrushchev had in mind. Real tension began to mount in the White House when the news came that one of our U-s's was missing. "It looked as if it might be slipping out of our control," said one White House man. "We were not then on the edge of nuclear war, but we couldn't be sure. There was the feeling we were mov
Kenndy began seriously to consider an in Though the troops had been assembled and earlier and the rumors of an imminent assault had cir poised culated freely, an invasion had never been foremost in Ken nedy's thinking. Saturday, however, the possibility loomed
vasion of Cuba.
larger.
ing toward it." In these hours
The
strident voice of Fidel
Castro from
Havana
early
Sunday gave the first hint. He did not really care about the missiles, he said, he only cared about peace. At 9 A.M. (EST) the Moscow Radio began to broadcast another letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy, and this was the word that Washing ton had so fervently awaited. Khrushchev stated that he had ordered work on the missile sites halted, the missiles crated and returned to Russia, the action to be verified by the
Blockade
United Nations. In return he asked for the blockade to be lifted, the United States and other nations of the western hemisphere to pledge not to attack or invade Cuba. The deal was made.
An enormous
staff
peace settled on the White House.

in the
Weary
members came out
open again and smiled. Re
porters clustered on the porch beside the President's office to watch him board a helicopter to join his family in Glen Ora for the rest of the day. McGeorge Bundy, surrounded
to lunch one Then, by one, the offices and the phone booths began to empty. It was just an other Sunday afternoon in Washington, a dead town on the week ends.
by
his four children
and
his wife
who had come
with
him
in his office, watched too.
This time Khrushchev lived up to his word. The forty-two were taken down and shipped home while our Navy counted them. The sites were destroyed. The IL-28's were recrated and sent back to Russia. We were not granted onsite inspection and we therefore did not give the Soviets
missiles
the "no-invasion"
It
commitment they wanted.

still
was true that Castro

full control.
resided in Cuba, the

as
com
munists in
He
was in many ways just
irksome
and as perplexing a problem as he had been before. But the crisis had never been an American-Cuban affair. Its genesis was much broader and more important. It was a basic cold-war confrontation, a struggle between Russia and the United States. Therefore its solution was of much deeper
meaning than Castro. There was the unassailable fact that Khrushchev had gambled and lost. There were none of his offensive missiles in Cuba and none of his IL-2& bombers. Whatever his plan had been, it had failed and failed rather grandly. If, indeed, Khrushchev had not held much respect for
Kennedy's determination up until then, he did now. The message had been unmistakable. The United States, as the backbone of the free world,
itself held in rare esteem, and the stature of John Kennedy grew with it. The Organization of American States was more united than ever, and for the time being the allies
found
had drawn closer than they had been before. There was the fervid hope among the top policy planners that the cold war would enter a new phase, that the free world had seized a thin edge of initiative which, with skill ful and diligent pressure, could be expanded so that com munism could be inexorably rolled back. It was still too early to judge for certain, but there were
encouraging
signs.
The
fissure in
the communist monolith
grew as Red China criticized the Kremlin's Cuban back down. The appeals for peace from Moscow increased in in tensity and frequency, and abruptly talk of a new Berlin crisis vanished. There were seemingly sincere overtures to
halt nuclear testing. Kennedy faced cautiously into this
new
wind.
Though
deeply gratified by the turn of events, he was also disturbed by the complete un trust worthiness of Khrushchev. Many were quick to suggest that now with Khrushchev at last aware of the American will, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union would warm. But Kennedy won dered how you could do business with a man who had de liberately tried to perpetrate the most monumental decep
tion of recent history.
Nor was Kennedy
deceived about the nature of the
w orld
r
problems that lay ahead. Britain's entry into the Common Market was in question. De Gaulle's insistence on France's becoming an independent nuclear force ran against the
wishes of the United States, which wanted an integrated European force. Social and economic problems in Latin
America were as onerous as ever. Though we were not los ing the war in Vietnam, we were not clearly winning it. Red China and India were in a mountain war that threatened to
spread. Yet there was a
new
feeling of confidence in the
White
was a confidence of the President in his govern ment, a confidence of the men in themselves. They had per formed superbly in the thirteen critical days. The effort had succeeded the New Frontier had worked well in its toughest
House.
It
test
**The President," said an aide,
"now
has a sense that his
own government can
work, that he can mobilize his
own
Blockade
resources, that
he can judge people
correctly.
is
There
is
a con
going." experience/' said one member of the special committee. "There was a deep sense of the sharing of danger/
"It
viction of the correctness of the direction he
was an enormous
1
human
Kennedy's team had drawn closer

lied
to
one another, had re

affected
more on one
another.
The
President was moved, too, by

it
this feeling of
comradeship.
How
him became
when, without any warning, at the end of one of the meetings of his crisis group, he handed to each man a small
clear
silver calendar of
days 16 through 28 were etched deeply so they stood out from the others. In one corner were his initials, in another corner
October mounted on walnut.
The
the initials of the recipient. Kennedy had conceived the idea himself, ordered the calendars made at Tiffany's, then had carefully gone over the list of men he wanted to honor. He
also gave
one
to Jackie.
There had been no question, of

felt
course, of
how
his staff
the fickle one. And, suddenly, it was in love again. George Gallup soon found that 74 per cent of the voters liked the way John Kennedy was doing his
job.
about him.
The public was
On November
6 their endorsement showed in a way that

heart of any politician, particularly one
would gladden the
who was President
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE PEOPLE APPROVE

E 87 th Congress was a mild ache to John Kennedy. It was true enough that it turned out far more im
to matter. It
it
TH
est.
portant legislation than
but that did not seem

social programs.
And what
was credited with passing, balked on Kennedy's big did accomplish was done in
it
such a prosaic manner that it seemed downright dull. Even some of its hairbreadth failures couldn't arouse much inter
Part of the trouble was the contrast with the old days.
Those memories of a Democratic congress under Eisenhower were splashed with color.
Gone were
Lyndon
the flamboyant productions of the Texans, Baines Johnson and Sam Taliaferro Rayburn, who
ran the Congress up until 1961. Lyndon had been the mag nificent general who could organize Senate affairs backstage
like
an infantry division and march in the votes at the dra
matic moment. He could produce cliff hangers or landslides, whatever the occasion demanded. But most of all he could
produce
legislation,
little
and
it
always came in Vista-Vision.
When
was
things got a
too gaudy over in the Senate
Chamber, you
could turn to Mr. Sam,
who was American
heritage.
He
all heart, all true, all care, all
wisdom and all else that the Texas prairie and the United States House of Representa tives could impart to a man and that was plenty. could be blamed somewhat for the miserly ap Kennedy of the old He moved the stage down Pennsyl praisals 87th, vania Avenue and would have it no other way. The senators
The People Approve
and congressmen languished
in the
White House shadow.
They craved
and then.
the spotlight, but they got only a flicker
now
the 87th finally went home on October 13 after hav for itself meeting ing at last created a distinction of sorts it since than other session in one 1951 Congress any longer
When
was calculated that Kennedy had received 304 requests out of a total of 653. It was about an average score quantitatively, and there were even some notable achievements qualitatively. The great problem in rating the Kennedy program arose be
cause his highly publicized legislation fared dismally. Among the wins, Kennedy could point to the boldest trade
legislation in history, giving
him power
to slash tariffs
by
at
least 50 per cent and remove some entirely. In any other era, that bill alone would have marked the 87th for history. But
demanded more. Kennedy won his proposal to United Nations indebtedness by buying up to the help out un $100 million in bonds. A three-year program to retrain a set up private employed workers got by, and a proposal to satellite was ap a communications to operate corporation a Constitutional amendment to out proved. The 87th okayed federal in elections, all of Kennedy's beefed taxes law
these times
poll
up defense-money requests, a farm bill with tougher produc tion controls to help curb surplus crop, a housing bill, aid to in the minimum wage from $i depressed areas, an increase a tax revision measure to give a per hour to $1.25 per hour, to business for new equipment, credit tax 7 per cent income Some of the a rate increase and a public works bill.
bills
were compromises with what Kennedy really wanted and asked for, but compromise is part of the Kennedy system.
postal
and this was a major blow. Medi aged under social security, care had been a lynch-pin of his whole New Frontier image; he just could not budge it. The 87th refused to give him a of Urban Affairs, it chopped away with glee new
Department
at foreign aid, it turned
Kennedy
failed to get his bill for medical care for the
him down when he asked
for long-
term aid financing. Kennedy had rated an aid to education but in the first bill as important as any of his new proposals, a fight over in session of the 87th it became enmeshed whether it should include both public and parochial schools,
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
and
it
died.
There was nobody brave enough
to revive
it
in
the second session.
agonizing thing was that the Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress failed to function like majorities. One or two votes in a committee sometimes stalled legisla
tion, or
The
powerful and obstinate committee chairmen sim
ply refused to act. Kennedy was resigned to the traditions of Congress which gave the committee chairmanships to the
senior members.
gressional system,
was equally resigned to the clumsy con which routed legislation through subcom mittees, committees, and more committees, each stop being full of traps. The system could be tampered with a bit, as when in 1961 and 1963 the House Rules Committee was en larged to give it a more liberal cast and thus make it a more freely flowing legislative avenue. The Rules Committee had
He
and form
to assign each bill (except appropriation measures) a time for debate, and thus by simply refusing to grant a "rule," the
committee could strangle legislation. But beyond this there was very little that Kennedy felt he could do to remove the anchor that dragged at his legislative efforts. The very nature of the men themselves, each representing a tiny section of land which might reflect but a single economic or social view, could affect the outcome of a program for the nation. Through longevity one congressman could rule a powerful committee molding all the legislation which passed
through him to suit his conservative or liberal tastes. John Kennedy, who was responsible for the national good, often felt that legislation which had run through this Rube Gold berg route was far wide of the majority will. The President
huge wealthy lobbies, such as the Chamber Commerce, the Farm Bureau and the American Medical Association, had become bureaucracies themselves, no longer
also felt that the
of
genuinely attuned to their memberships. Policy was made in the headquarters and handed down to those who paid the dues, rather than being a reflection of the membership.
Their power was great, primarily due to their increasing wealth, and they used it in massive attacks on Congress. About the only way that he felt he might alter the legisla tive complexion of the House was to try to win a handful of congressmen who would vote with him. Inevitably on his pet
The People Approve

pieces of legislation conservative southern
Q^&
Democrats would
join with Republicans, and often they would defeat him if, indeed, the legislation was not sunk before by the same proc ess in committee. The votes were so close that Kennedy had
some hope
that four or five
new congressmen might
tilt
the
balance in his favor.
But he faced that nasty political habit that the electorate had of cutting down the congressional forces of the party in power. Only Roosevelt in 1934 had broken it, and then the country had been on its knees begging for help. The pro& pects in prosperous 1962 were not good for a Democratic
victory at the polls.
Kennedy decided
that
he would campaign harder than any
President in history to try to win more leverage in Congress. There were those who suggested he was foolish. A President did not have to commit his prestige for a bunch of congress men, particularly when international peril was as rampant as now. Under this theory, if Kennedy failed to beat tradition, his loss of prestige on the Hill would be even greater and his program would suffer more. Why not, then, make some
token political speeches but remain above the battle? When the returns came in, if they were not too bad, claim a great victory for his policies; if they were bad well, shrug and
point out that
it
happened
to
everybody in the
off-year.
Kennedy was
of a different mind.
matter prestige was fully committed anyway. the President the to his in election, party pened
He No
believed that his
what hap would be
blamed or praised. He was party leader, he cast the image. Kennedy would not be above the battle, he would do all he could to elect a Congress that would look with more favor on his big bills. There also, in long range, was the national interest. Ken nedy wanted taxes cut to strike at the roots of many of the
ills
plaguing the country
employment, depressed
ternal
sluggish growth, idle plants, un areas, narrow profits, the gold out
flow. Correcting these evils
stagnant
was necessary not only for in but also for our international our relative su strength. We could not sustain, indefinitely, and nuclear conventional, with a periority in arms, both economy. In Kennedy's mind, the economy had benational
health,
gr
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
the key to the future; his tax bill had become the key economy; and Congress \vas the key to the tax bill.
come
to the
President did not begin the political season under auspicious signs. In the early fall his own popularity had
fallen.
The
some 43 per cent
a Gallup poll had shown that among the voters, of the Republicans said they had a reason to vote, while only 30 per cent of the Democrats said they
politi
And
had a reason. This was unmistakable evidence of that

cal disease called apathy.
Kennedy put
his staff to
work finding out what happened
in the off-year elections all the way back to 1930. He wanted the ground properly pessimistic before he started. The
technique was called "underdoggery." enough, any gain was cheering news.
If
one started low
The
showed
Senate
diligent researchers soon had the answers, and they that since 1930 the average off-year congressional loss
seats.
If
for the party in

figures, the
seats.
power was thirty-nine House seats and five the 1934 election is eliminated from these
is
forty-six House seats and seven Senate In 1950, after Truman's close 1948 victory, the Demo crats lost twenty-nine House seats and five Senate seats.
average
Viewed from almost any

ing.
angle, the figures
were not encourag
Yet there was the generally unrecognized fact that the 8yth Congress had very little Democratic fat on it. Most of the 263 Democratic members of the House came from solid Democratic districts. Often in presidential elections the win
ning presidential candidate will pull along with him a goodly number of Democratic congressional candidates who normally would not win and many of whom are then elimi nated in the off-year election. But Kennedy, in his squeaking
was
1960 victory, lost twenty-one House seats. Thus in 1962 there little for the electorate to "normalize."
The
President from
the
start
made ambitious
plans.
When November
6 rolled around, his aides calculated that he would have traveled a record-shattering 19,000 miles (more in one year than Eisenhower's 14,500 accumulated in
1954 and 1958 combined). At first the White House strategists were preoccupied with the idea that the President could wing his way through
The People Approve

the hustings on "nonpolitical" trips, dedicating dams, in specting national forests and military installations and just, incidentally, have the area's candidates up on the stage
with him. This plan not only lent a statesmanlike quality to his campaigning, but made that which cost 12,350 huge jet,
per hour to run, a legitimate government expense item. Otherwise the National Committee already nearly a mil lion dollars in the hole would have to pay for the trips.
to the
Kennedy tried it out in a natural-resource-oriented swing West Coast and again in a loop through the South,
where he inspected the nation's space research and launch ing complexes. But these were not satisfactory. They were a little phony, and Kennedy sensed it. He could not take off his gloves and join the row he had to watch what he said and what he did too closely. He loved politics and all the dazzle that went with it the motorcades, the crowds, the brass bands and, best of all, shouting hoarsely for the peo ple to vote Democratic and get rid of the Republicans. He abandoned his "nonpoliticar role and joined the fight Kennedy had to grope a while to find his old form and to decide what his line of attack would be. He began his genu
mankind
ine 1962 electioneering in the grandest manner known to from the depths of the State Farm Arena in Har-
risburg, Pennsylvania, still pungent from a 4-H parade of Jersey milch cows that had passed through only six hours earlier. It was a monster rally, with all the and
bunting
the bellowing and the electric organ that make a politi cian's hair stand out straight. This was the country of the $ioo-a-plate fund-raising dinner, conceived and nurtured by Matt McClosky, a dumpy Philadelphia millionaire who for
years as national treasurer
now had gone on
to his reward:
had stoked the party's coffers and Ambassador to Ireland. Mat
that night in September. It may have been the biggest political dinner in all history. It was claimed that more than 12,000 were fed on the fourteen-
would have been proud
acres of floor in the State
Farm Show
Building, netting nearly
a million dollars. a Philadelphia caterer, mounted a twenty-five-truck gastronomic convoy in the afternoon that rolled into Harrisburg with 12,000 pounds of precooked beef,
Rotzell,
Oliver B.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
1,680 pounds of peas, 120 gallons of Russian dressing for 1,425 heads of lettuce and 12,000 tomatoes, and a two-ton truck filled with watermelons. The food was consumed in a blue
cigar fog, and then the diners main event.
moved
into the arena for the
audience roared and whistled, and the organ nearly in. Kennedy stood there, hands in his pockets, and let the sound roll over him like a soothing ocean swell. "I will introduce myself/' he began. "I am
caused the building to cave
The
Teddy Kennedy's
brother.
."
Once again
the great cho

it.
rus of approval welled
up but Kennedy silenced
And
then
he began to hammer, forging his theme for 1962. "It was a cold day in January when this Democratic administration took office. The nation's engine was idling. All of this was twenty months ago tonight, and were I to tell you to night that all was well, or were I to say that the 8yth Con
.
gress
I
had done all the things which we feel must be done, would be setting my sights too low. But the facts of the matter are that progress has been made on every single one of these problems, that the decline in our position has been reversed, and that this country is moving again/' Kennedy often had said that beyond the confines of Wash ington things always looked different. But nobody had really known how much until they heard Kennedy. "At home the
gross national product, which is the measuring stick for the productivity of the United States, has risen by more than 10
per cent since that day, by nearly $50 billion above

vious peak.
.
.
its
pre
salaries of our working men and women have risen $27 million, or 10 per cent. "Although unemployment is still high, and is still much too high, it is 40 per cent less in this state than it was twenty months ago. "The profits enjoyed by our businessmen have risen over
.
"The wages and
10 billion, or 26 per cent.
"Seven hundred depressed areas are finally receiving re . , . aid. development "We have passed the most comprehensive housing bill in
the history of this country. . . "A $900 million public works program
.
The People Approve
"No
other Congress in recent years has

to
. .
made
a record of
progress and compassion
match this. ." All the thunder was there and all the trappings, but some
thing was wrong in Harrisburg. The claims by Kennedy were too extravagant. He had never before been that much of a demagogue and seemed ill
at ease in the role. At that, he had dropped out a paragraph from the prepared text, a paragraph that was even more lau datory: "We have seized the initiative in trade and aid and diplomacy stemmed the tide in Vietnam and stopped the conquest of Laos. Mr. Castro has not taken over Latin Amer ica, Mr. Gizenga has not taken over the Congo and Mr. ." One re Khrushchev has not taken over West Berlin. porter folded up his portable typewriter and shook his head. "I'm amazed," he said as he trudged out of the deserted arena, "that he didn't mention the fact that the Indians have not yet recaptured Manhattan Island." A week later in Wheeling, West Virginia, Kennedy began to find his form. Along the highways in this state, which in the 1960 primary election had launched him toward the White House, the people showed some of the old frenzied adulation of two years ago. Kennedy had come to help out Cleveland Bailey, a 78now year-old congressman who had been redistricted and was fighting another incumbent, Republican Arch Moore, little man who had once taken Jr. Bailey was a stooped, bald
. .
a swing at Harlem's Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, but he did not connect solidly enough to do damage.
was raining when Kennedy got up on the platform. But one by one he named the congressmen around him, letting his audience savor each endorsement. He slipped when he turned to Bailey and called him by his opponent's name, Congressman Moore. He hurried over the error, but not
It
before the local press caught it. He did some bragging about what he had done for
West
He it was Virginia, but it was subdued. And besides, had made certain that the state got a lot of attention in his
true.
two years. Then he settled into the routine that he would use in one form or another in most of his coming stops. "Two years ago I said that it was time to get this country
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
moving again. In the last two years, we have made a start, but just a start. But we have begun to act, for no Congress in a generation has passed as much affirmative and constructive
Last year 84 per cent of the Republicans voted in the Senate against nation wide financing of unemployment compensation ... 81 per cent of the Republicans in the House voted against the area
legislation as the present Congress.
.
. .
95 per cent of the Republicans in the House voted against the Housing Act; 80 per cent voted 80 per cent of the Re against the minimum wage of $1.25
redevelopment
bill;
publican members of the House of Representatives voted against giving a man $1.25 for a forty-hour-week, an hour."
Kennedy scowled, he waved a clenched fist into the rain, and then cried: "This is the issue in this campaign. We want to finish the job that we have started here in West ." Virginia and in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Before he left, he went down to the crowd. He was still coatless and hatless, and the rain pounded down. He reached
.
out for the

you.
.
come
Good to see damp hands. "How are you. Better get out of the rain. ... Nice of you to out." Now he felt it, now he was moving the right
. . .
way. In Cincinnati, Ohio, Republican heartland, he met the po litical enemy. The signs read, "Where Are Those Fighting Irish"; "OK, We Licked Mississippi. Now How About
Cuba?"; "Russian Rockets 90 Miles Away. Blockade." this administration has Kennedy answered them. ". added five combat divisions. We have increased our Army
.
.
from
eleven
.
.
to
sixteen
divisions
in
the
last
twenty
months.
of the day, the Republicans. "Now you have a chance to decide here in Ohio and in this district whether this is the kind of Congress
."
Then he turned
to the real
enemy
and country you want one that sits still, one that lies at an chor, one that drifts, one that says 'No/ They [Republicans] have made the word *No* a political program. ." He went on to Detroit: "Every off-year in this century with the exception of once, the party in power has lost votes, and I can tell you after the razor-thin majorities by which we have won or lost, that we need every vote we can get. Other wise this country will stand still. The decision is yours and
.
.
The People Approve
we
ask your help in Michigan." In
lined the streets and sidewalks to watch
Hamtramck, the Poles him go by slowly on

on
to Flint
the back of a top-down convertible. He was in full flight then. He rushed
and
Muskegon and hopped over to Minneapolis. The following week in Baltimore he took aim again at the social issues. "I am proud to come back to this city and state and ask your support in electing Democrats those mem bers of the House and Senate who support the minimum wage and medical care for the aged, and urban renewal, and cleaning our rivers, and giving security to our older people, and educating our children, and giving jobs to our workers. That is the issue of this campaign." In Newark on Columbus Day he added a personal touch.
"My
grandfather always used to claim that the Fitzgeralds
were descended from the Geraldinis, who came from Venice. I have never had the courage to make that claim, but I will
make it on Columbus Day in
this State of
New Jersey."
Next was New York, Pennsylvania's Monongahela Valley where steel mills stood idle, Indianapolis, Louisville, Buffalo, and back home, weary but gratified that the line was begin
ning to catch hold.
"He just keeps putting more in his schedule," said one White House staff member. "He's going to kill us all." When Eisenhower took to the stump with some biting criticism of Kennedy and his New Frontier, the politicians
were delighted, not at what he said, but at the fact that he was moving around, that there would be a lively fight, "We'll pay Ike's fare any day he wants to go out and make
is still our big fear," added another aide. It was a foregone conclusion that the President would help rouse the people. Wherever he goes in that glistening come the White House jet, the people are smitten. With him of gleaming limou a flotilla Secret the Service, press corps,
those speeches," said Pierre Salinger. "The lack of political enthusiasm
presidential aura. The newspapers carry the story by the literal foot, and pictures of the Kennedy smile fill follows him as he comes into town page after page. in a motorcade that is certain to wind through the heavy
sines
the
TV
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
Democratic
districts so
the streets will be

is
filled.
The
candi
date with a President on his side
rarely hurt.
rested for the next onslaught, he learned about the Russian missiles in Cuba. In his heart the campaign
As Kennedy
died as he shifted the focus of his energy to the crisis. It was a shame to have to abandon such an experiment as the one begun October 19. It was to have been one of
the most horrendous political week ends on record, with 5,500 miles of flying from one end of the country to the
other. On this journey Kennedy would have talked to 900,ooo people in the flesh, another five million on television, shaken 2,700 hands and heard "Anchors Aweigh" another fifteen times. It might even have had some effect on the
election.
On
October
28,
would remove the
missiles
when Khrushchev announced that he and bombers from Cuba, politics
was back in style, and Kennedy was again vitally interested. But good politics, right then, was to stay in Washington and keep a wakeful eye on the Russians in Cuba and hope,
On election night Kennedy sat with Larry O'Brien. It was not the happiest of evenings at the start. O'Brien's most secret estimate was that the Democrats would lose nine House seats.
He
not the
figured that they would gain in the Senate, but that was vital issue in this election. The Senate was not the
legislative bottleneck that the
House had proved
to be.
O'Brien's public estimate had a fat safety margin. He put in on the record for reporters that Democrats might lose ten
to fifteen
House seats.
The secret nine-seat estimate was about the President's own calculation that evening as the polls closed and the first
meaningful tallies began to come in. There was a shocker right off which sent their chart plunging more. Down in Kentucky, Frank Burke was roundly defeated. For a few minutes the flash was demoralizing. Burke had been picked by O'Brien as a solid winner. No man had given Kennedy
more support in Congress, and now he was sunk by a Goldwater conservative, Gene Snyder. O'Brien and Kennedy groaned together. They upped their estimates of House losses oe tbe basis of Burke's defeat and thought that they
The People Approve
ogj
to keep them down to twenty-five seats. The sun swept toward the west and the tide of returns washed east. The Burke pattern did not hold and hope be
would be lucky
gan to build. Surprising names were added to the Demo cratic rolls. The young Birch Bayh became the senator-elect from Indiana, beating fourteen-year veteran Homer Capehart. The 3 8-year-old Don Fraser from Minneapolis was in possession of the House seat of Walter Judd, former medical missionary to China and lecture-circuit rider. Gaylord Nelson, Wisconsin governor, removed Alex Wiley from the Senate after twenty-four years. The President went to bed near midnight feeling that he might have shattered tradi
tion.
Not
all
norships the Republican column.
fell
the news was good, however. The big-four gover with a jarring (to the White House) crash Into
Robert Morgenthau in
million votes.
Nelson Rockefeller smothered with a margin of half a Humpty-dumpty Mike DiSalle was tumbled
New York
by James A. Rhodes in Ohio. Even the young and vigorous

suffered. Michigan's one-termer late and energetic, lost to George
John Swainson, 37, articu Romney, 55, also articulate and energetic. Out in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia's ex-Mayor Richardson Dilworth was defeated by Congressman William
Scranton.
For John Kennedy this lineup would be of particular in because it was likely that his opponent in 1964 would be one of those governors. The Democrats could point to Hawaii, Iowa, Massachu setts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont, in which
terest
they
won
governorships, but
somehow
these states did not
have the high
political voltage of the big four
and Colorado,
Rhode
Island,
Oklahoma and Wyoming, which the
GOP
also won. In the South there were the vestiges of a two-party sys tem, with new Republican sproutings in Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas. The Democrats were quick to point out that it could be bad news for the Republicans if their southern members were no more loyal to the party program than southern Democrats were loyal to Kennedy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX:
at 7 A.M. on November 7, and his TV was blaring the good news as the first timid rays of the morning sun melted the frost off the White House lawn. As he heard more returns from across the nation, the
Kennedy was awake
set
President's smile
became
as persistent as the daylight.
That
political habit had been broken. The Democrats added four Senate seats, making their total forces 68 out of the 100. In the House they lost four
which was only a fraction of the usual off-year loss. because the House, which had temporarily been in creased to 437 members when Alaska and Hawaii became
seats,
And
states,
normal 435 members, the Republicans gained only two seats in the totals. The lineup would be 259 Democrats to 176 Republicans. There were 67 new con gressmen in all, most of them having replaced members of their own parties, thus altering the numerical balance only But the Democratic dopesters calculated that slightly. among the new men there were more Kennedy supporters
reverted to
its
they might supply as
many
as
twelve
new
votes for
some
Kennedy Kennedy was soon on

town.
bills.
He
talked
to
staff
the phone, his goodwill flooding the members, successful candidates,
talked with Senator-elect

sachusetts.
unsuccessful candidates, the party faithful. And, of course, he Edward (Teddy) Kennedy of Mas
heartened by the results of yesterday's election,

official
For the outside world his reaction was subdued. "I am read his
1 *
statement. "This country
and the Congress
face
ma
jor responsibilities in the coming two years, and I am certain that the Congress will meet its responsibilities in a progres
sive
and vigorous manner/' But inside the Oval Office things were not so strait-laced. The remarks about loser Richard Nixon, who had exited from yet another political platform after ungracefully blast ing the press for not loving him, were, according to wit nesses, pungent and satisfying to New Frontiersmen. Counsel Ted Sorensen went joyfully to work calculating the proportions of victory for inquiring newsmen and politi
cians.
And up
in his second-story walnut-paneled den, Larry
The People Approve
O'Brien
sat
with a foot on his desk and yellow ticker copy

his
lap.
curling across
now from
The phone calls were coming in and O'Brien cradled the receiver be tween his shoulder and his ear as he smoked Pall Malls. "Ya did a great job out there, Jesse. Now keep mov ahead. the President feels Yeah, ing pretty good about
all districts
. . .
it.
."
Between
ters,
calls
he sent out congratulatory wires and
let
made
frantic arrangements to be sure that his emissaries
were riding herd on the very close contests such as Endicott (Chub) Peabody's thin lead over John A. Volpe for the
governorship of Massachusetts.
Democrats wondered why they had won what they did. Naturally everybody felt that Kennedy's handling of the Cu " ban crisis was a major factor ("We were 'Cubanized/ cried
Republicans). But
it
wasn't quite as simple as that.
There
were indications that the younger, more attractive men fared well in both parties the Democrats seemed to come up with more of them year after year. The extremists, both left and right, lost. The Democratic victories in the Midwest (George McGovern for the Senate in South Dakota; Hughes for governor in Iowa) could, in a roundabout way, be linked to the final death of the Catholic issue, which had
hurt in 1960. There were strong indicators that Congress' failure to act favorably on Kennedy's plan of health insur ance for the aged had cut deeply into some districts and
states.
gested
in the engine room of the Democratic and sug party listened to all the lofty talk and then turned to be some notice given to there that
Of course
the
men
maybe
ought
they were looking for rea grass-roots organization sons of victory. For the first time in history California was organized somewhat like an eastern state. "By our standards back
"it was only a fair job, but by was excellent." In Los Angeles County alone, they reckoned, there were some 13,000 paid workers out getting people to the polls in cars, in buses, on foot. Mountainous Jesse Unrah, speaker of the California As of the sembly, was the man who did it under the tutelage
when
here/' said
one party worker,

it
their standards
White House
experts. Larry O'Brien's tracks
were detected in
the state just four days before the polls opened.
"He
didn't
one Washington politician. Birch Bayh's win in Indiana could be attributed to just about any cause and every cause Cuba, young candidate go there
for the sunshine/' said
versus old candidate, emphasis

in
on medicare. The boys back

happened to
Washington gave a
in
sly
smile. 'Indiana just
have the bestorganized and best-financed campaign of any

state
the union," said one. Indiana's Governor Matt
Welsh, holding the party reigns, had sweated his party into top condition. A half-million-dollar war fund didn't hurt.
Where had
the
money come from? "Why,"

first
said
one party
the
functionary, "from the flower fund, of course."
For a moment in the
hours of November
7,
White
House experts looked ahead and Kennedy's

got
first
likely
opponent
consideration*
is
''Rocky
the boy," said one.
He
already seemed far ahead in presidential positioning,
and nobody knows like the Kennedys what it means to be gin early and run hard. They reasoned that George Romney would have a tussle with the obstinate Michigan legislature
and would
lose a good deal of his Bryl Cream look in two years. was too much of a novice yet. They even, for the Scranton
moment, found chinks in Rocky's armor plate. (Chinks that would grow when Rockefeller married "Happy" Murphy.)
"Rocky won with
less
margin than
last
time and he was
up against a nobody," said one national-committee power. "And I do mean a nobody. Nice, smart guy, Morgenthau.
But zero as a candidate."
All this was fun, but the most important consideration was the nature of the 88th Congress, and that nobody could really fathom until it had assembled, organized itself and
deliberated for months on the
Kennedy program.
CHAPTER TWEXTY-SEVEX
EDUCATION IN ECONOMICS
John Kennedy went through economic metamorphosis. In the embryonic stage he was a budget balancer (at least he talked it, though he never actually
years
it).
TWO
IN
achieved
his wings fully developed, he proposed not only a budget with a $1 1.9 billion debt for the fiscal year 1964, but he coupled it with a tax cut, which was more than enough to make any old politician choke on his cigar.
It
With
was
political heresy.
Tax
cuts were supposed to
come
when
surpluses developed. Mounting debt was supposed to be countered with an increase in taxes. Every fiscal folktale
seemed
have been violated. Kennedy appeared to be dig nifying debt, which everyone knew was evil. But in the Kennedy back shop it was simply another man
to
ifestation of the praginatist, of a decision based on the best and most current economic facts, an innovation encouraged and endorsed by some of the country's top economists, a bold and sophisticated (Kennedy's enchanted word) step into the future for a nation whose fiscal woes were bewilder-
ingly complex. At least that was the
way they explained
it
There were
the whole idea shocking, and others, not only Kennedy's judgment but that of his they questioned advisers and the very validity of his economic facts. These
however, who found
doubters,
many
world, wanted a tax cut but
with impeccable credentials in the financial felt that the huge debt was
wrong, that Kennedy should cut government spending along
#56
with cutting taxes.
CHAPTER TWENTY -SEVEN:
Reduced to its simplest terms, the Kennedy plan was to unleash the economy by removing burdensome taxes and letting the fresh money flow into industry for plant mod
ernization and into consumer hands for spending on new products. If the economy responded to the transfusion prop
erly,
it would mean such boom times that tax collections would swell and erase the temporary deficits. But on paper the program and the reasoning behind it be came a forbidding forest of figures and charts.
It was irony that John Kennedy as he entered 1963 dwelled deep in that forest and seemed quite at ease. It was Joe Kennedy back in 1960 who had wailed with mock seriousness that none of his sons cared about business
and
that
he was the only one who would bother with the
family fortune.
John Kennedy himself in private confessed that making money and the business community had never stirred him in
the slightest.
And Bob Kennedy said outright that the Kennedy boys had sought public service because it beat "following the dol
lar."
was John Kennedy at midterm who was more in tricately and importantly involved with the dollar than any man in the United States.
Yet
it
country had not begun to move again as had so harshly demanded as a candidate, the fact Kennedy that the economy was not soaring, was the deepest disap pointment and the greatest challenge to the New Frontier as
fact that the
The
began its third year. Wealth was the base of our national security and our for eign policy. A nation "moving again" could help heal some of its own sores unemployment, depressed areas, inade quate schools, bad roads. In short, following the dollar, tend ing to its health and proliferation, had become Kennedy's
it
main
business.
Ironically, too, there
were few
men
with
less direct
experi
dollar.
ence in the anxieties and
difficulties of
managing the
When
he took
office, it
personal holdings, those that he
was roughly estimated that Kennedy's came into possession of un-
der the terms of his father's trust and those
still
in the trust,
amounted
to nearly
after taxes of $100,000 a year.
$10 million, yielding As President his salary was
him an income
another $100,000 (taxable) plus $50,000 expense money and another $40,000 for travel. (There were other driblets, such
as
book royalties.) It all added up to the fact that he went from being incredibly rich to being even richer. As a senator he had had only remote contacts with the grubby world of the dollar. He had been responsible for his automobiles and airplanes and homes, but that was about all. Every month the Kennedy central accounting office in New York, which handled the family's vast affairs, toted up his outgo and his income and sent the figures down to Washington for his perusal. As a senator he had looked them over with some regularity, though there are no re corded incidents when he ever had those soul-quenching sensations which come occasionally to men as they ponder the bills and reach the inescapable conclusion that it is im
possible to rear a family in the twentieth century. Kennedy's senatorial salary of $22,500 was sent to New York and dumped in the big pot with his other earnings. He gave
more than
his salary to charity every year, a practice
he con
both had checking accounts. Yet he never held a credit card, and many times he had no money with him. He once gave a friend good-
tinued in the White House.
He and Jackie
natured hell for not tipping a waitress enough at the Mil waukee airport after the friend had paid the tab. He was in
cessantly asking
how much people
earned, as
if
he had
never really considered wages and salaries as more than statistics in economic reports. Occasionally he would ask a staff member with a large family how he was making out, but this was the exception. Dollars just did not interest him.
White House, his isolation from everyday economics became even greater. He dropped his regular review of the Kennedy accounts sent down from New York. There was no longer a house to worry about, or
to the
When Kennedy moved
was
servants to hire, or cars to buy, or airplanes to charter. This all done by the White House staff, and it kept the books.
necessity for the mail.
There was no
through
him
ever to see a bill
come
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
more careful about carry was not because he was more ing money the national but because interested, gaze was on him at all times. And even then there were lapses. When he was called upon to open the National Heart Fund drive, he dis covered that he did not have any change and had to bum a
As
President,
he grew a
little
with him. But
it
quarter from a Secret Service agent to drop in the can. He has had to borrow money for church offerings from his
companion, Dave Powers.

pretty well.
On
balance, however, he does
holding
it
usually takes out his wallet in church and, extremely low and close to him, fishes out a bill
He
which he folds tightly and puts in the plate. Try as hard as he can to obscure the amount of money he gives, somebody usually finds out. When he dropped a $100 bill in the plate in Los Angeles, the news quickly passed from the church usher out onto the news wires and across the nation. In
Washington once he deposited a brown envelope in St. Stephen's collection, thinking this would be the complete camouflage, but churchmen are as curious as others, and when the final organ strains had died, the envelope was isolated and torn open, and another presidential $100 bill became an historical footnote.
His formal education in the mystic science of economics was considered minimal. He took just enough economics to get through Harvard, and his grades were not exciting. When he went west to enroll at the Stanford Business School, most of his interest centered on a Buick convertible which he bought with his earnings from the book Why England Slept. And his stay at the London School of Economics ear lier and his exposure to Socialist professor Harold J. Laski had been more in the nature of atmosphere than academic
endeavor.
What Kennedy knew when he came
to
Congress about
economics was learned, said one friend, in his "father's little red school of economics." Courses there were colorful but
nontechnical.
nomics from
mittee.
In his Senate days he learned something about labor eco his position on the Labor and Education Com
He rubbed up
Sumner
against
many
of the big
names in
economics
Slichter,
James Tobin, Seymour Harris,
Paul Samuelson, Walt Rostow and John Kenneth Galbraith. He asked advice from these men, read their memos dili
gently.
Kennedy sought a seat on the Joint Economic Com mittee, but when he finally got it in 1960, he was in the heat of his presidential drive and only managed to attend a
few meetings. However, to prepare himself for the campaign he read many heavy reports from the Joint Committee. He sensed the importance of the issue and used the slogan "Let's
get this country policy remained
moving again"
in the campaign.
But foreign
his real interest.
The primary campaigns in Wisconsin and West Virginia which assured his nomination by the Democrats in Los An geles in 1960 brought home to him some of the economics of poverty. He saw some of the battered houses of the dairy farmers, visited the rundown mining towns and looked into hundreds of discouraged eyes. One aide remembers his sit ac ting in his car in Wisconsin mulling over some newly in meant all what it milk and of quired facts about the price
terms of the people.
Once in the office, he was faced immediately with the prob lem of dwindling gold reserves. The economy was shakily emerging from a recession, and the related problems of un employment and automation nagged at him. Our relation and there ship to Europe's Common Market was unsolved were pressures from foreign products. There simply was no escape he had to learn more about economics. He took pains in selecting his Council of Economic Ad
Walter Heller of the University of Minnesota; James Tobin of Yale University; and Kermit Gordon of Wil
visers:
liams College. He increased the council's budget, strength ened the systems of economic information gathering. From the start he developed a close association with
eco Douglas Dillon, who played a vital role in all the major Fed the of a vice nomic decisions. Robert Roosa, president eral Reserve Bank of New York, joined Dillon's staff to give
it
extra luster.
Kennedy himself
set
out on his
own improvement pro
the heavy fiscal gram. In the old days he used to hurry by Office he began to Oval in the once but news in his papers
linger longer with the financial pages.
CHAPTER T WE NT Y -SEVEN
the Labor Department's statistics on un and economic growth rate just as soon as they employment were available. Memos or letters from economists such as Samuelson were given top priority and sent straight to the President. Heller, as Chairman of the CEA, was granted as easy access to the President as any staff member. Special articles on the economic problems of the country and the world were sought out by Kennedy, and he became an avid reader of Edwin Dale, The New York Times' eco nomic correspondent for Europe who wrote frequently and knowledgeably about the Common Market. The Econo mist, the British weekly heavily oriented toward economic developments, received more presidential attention than be
fore.
He demanded
While the President always commented to reporters about political pieces, he started doing the same thing about the more prosaic stories and articles on budgets and taxes. He urged his friends in journalism to write more about the na tional economy, and in the final months of 1962 there was a
mysterious outbreak of stories about balance of payments,
new ideas for reporting the budget and the need for tax reduction and reform, and many were traceable back to the
President.
Walter Heller proudly proclaimed Kennedy "the best stu I ever had." Indeed, the economists never had had a president so willing to listen to them. Kennedy trusted hard facts, not hunches, and though the science of economics was to a degree based on hunches, it could marshal an impressive array of figures and charts to support the hunches. The politicians could not match that, and so the pragmatic Ken
dent
nedy naturally turned more

Heller found Kennedy's
sary to
to the economists.
to be open. It was not neces knock down preconceived ideas. Teachers, like Hel ler, usually must spend a large part of their time countering the folklore about money and taxes which has been deeply embedded in our industrial society. The openness was to some degree traceable to Joe Ken nedy's influence on the President. Joe Kennedy was a skeptic, a loner, an unholy one along Wall Street, a disbeliever. Joe Kennedy was a great one to suspect the common sayings in
mind
financial circles, to find out for
3/ 1 himself what was going on
Q^
rather than taking somebody else's word. Often the President mentioned the fact that his father had frequently rejected the popular view of things in his own business career. of the experts found Kennedy a little too ready to ac the cept figures presented to him. Tabulated neatly, such can be powerful evidence in a case. Economists who figures
Some
work with them

than laymen.
so
One
their vulnerability better of the President's advisers was sometimes
much know
reluctant to present too many calculations to the President, for fear he would attach too much importance to them.
Kennedy's fast reading rate was an asset in his develop as an economist. He could race through the heavy memos and retain most of what he read. The President's
ment
ability to focus his concentration helped him, and his unemo tional nature was another characteristic ready-made for a
budding economist, who never can afford to confuse what he wants to be with what actually exists. Kennedy liked the economists, was intrigued by their art.
he decided he wanted Tobin in Washington to work Tobin at Yale and asked him. Tobin pro an "I'm tested, just ivory-tower economist," "That's the best kind," said the President, then added, "As a matter of fact, I'm an ivory-tower President." Answered Tobin, "That's the best kind." He accepted. As in other policy matters, it was virtually impossible to trace the origins of Kennedy's decisions about the economy to specific persons. The question often was asked of just who had the most influence over Kennedy. It was never really answered. The hysterical critics shouted the names of Schlesinger, Bowles and Galbraith as the ones who tried to lead Kennedy toward socialism. Of course Bowles no longer dwelled in the high policy ranks, having been moved out by Kennedy himself. Schlesinger tended to United Nations and Latin American affairs. Galbraith was off in India as the United States ambassador. However, he did still comment through letter on the state of the economy. But Galbraith
for him, he called
When
preferred public spending to cutting taxes as a spur to the economy. In the first two years his theories were rejected by Kennedy, who turned to the idea of a tax cut.
CHAPTER TWENTY -SEVEN

''Kennedy
is
an economic conservative/'
said
one of the
nation's top economists in attempting to describe the Presi dent's position.
Kennedy would dwell somewhere
in the center of a
tri
angle of ideas formed by joining the policy positions of Walter Heller, Douglas Dillon and Ted Sorensen, he said. The elements of business, theory and politics were all rep
resented.
But
this
to
many
it
was hard to reconcile conservatism with
and $1 1.9 billion deficit. And doubt brought anguish to the White House. The Presi dent's conviction was that without this rather drastic step the tax structure would continue to weigh down our freethe twin proposals of a tax cut
enterprise system.
sition
He
felt
so strongly about
it
that, as
oppo
he began to warn that without it we might have a fifth postwar recession. "Kennedy really believes/' pleaded an aide, "that business should prosper, that profits should be adequate, that people should be rewarded for initiative and achievement."
developed against his tax program,
Though
he
the
Kennedy
tutors after
two years claimed that
fully understood the complex problems facing him, such as balance of payments, taxation, economic growth, gold
flow
and the
federal budget, there
were times
at first
when
he was
as baffled as
any freshman.
could not fully remember, for instance, just when to apply the terms fiscal and monetary, although he understood these economic functions when talking about them.
He
He devised his own system, remembering

tary also
that
M for mone
stood for Martin (William McChesney Martin, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board) and that everything
else
was
fiscal.
tity device, "If
Kennedy once joked with Walter Heller about this iden Martin leaves/' he said, "we will have to get
somebody with a name beginning with
*MV
W.
"That's easy," said Heller. "We have Mitchell [George Mitchell, member of the Federal Reserve Board]."
Actually, in all the sophisticated thinking, the inherent virtue in a balanced budget remained unscathed. It was to
Kennedy and
stable times.
all
those
around him a desirable thing in
He
discovered that the times were far
more un-
QHQ
he had thought. His doctrine at first was that national only security matters or domestic emergencies should be grounds for producing a budget deficit. He had accused
stable than
the Eisenhower administration of imperiling this country's defenses by trimming them to fit the budget. In national se curity matters he vowed to fit the budget to the needs, and in
mounted deficit spending could not be avoided as he beefed up the armed services.
his first year, as the crises
the
But the harder he studied the problems of the economy, more dimensions he saw, and one of those new dimen
budget to
sions was the intricate relationship of the federal the national economy.
To
anced,
Kennedy, the budget was not just something to be bal it was an instrument to be used in the pursuit of his
administration's policy objectives. Since getting the economy moving was a major objective, the effect of the federal budget
on the economy was important

terms,
taxes
it
to him. In oversimplified
was easy to see that

off
if
drew
too
much
of the
money from
the government through the private

curtailing activity
sector of the
economy there was danger of

by
far the
most important sector. And turned if the around, government plunged into debt too much, there was danger of inflation. But how could one accurately measure such a complicated thing? After World War II there had been disquiet with the way
in that area,
the budget was calculated. It was a stark listing of estimated tax receipts pasted up against estimated expenses. It failed to differentiate between cash outlays and loans. It did not
take into consideration any of the money that went into the huge trust funds, such as social security and the highway
fund.
It
made no
on the
distinction
it
expenses. In short,
activities
between capital and operating did not measure the impact of federal
economy.
over-all
In the mid- 1950'$ the
what
it
called the National
Commerce Department developed Income Accounts. This was a way
of measuring the impact of federal spending on the national economy. It included transactions in the trust funds. Loans
their repayments were excluded. Taxes were counted when the money was set aside, not when it was paid. Expend itures were treated similarly. For example, the construction
and
a**]
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN:
economy when a contractor pays and buys his materials, not just when he finally gets the check from the government. The first full use of this new view of the budget came in
of a missile base affects the
his workers
the
fall
of 1961.
The
New
Frontier and
heat of the Berlin crisis was searing the Kennedy proposed a $34 billion increase
in defense spending to
meet the mounting pressure from communism. Coupled with the proposal was Kennedy's con
cern that the people of the country were not responding enough to the emergency. The politicians in his Cabinet,
such as his brother Bob and
Abe Ribicoff, argued for a tax not to cover the defense hike, only expenses, but more, really, to give the nation a sense of participating in the crisis. The
economists opposed
it.
Secretary Dillon, Heller
who became known
as the
and Bell, economic "Troika/* pointed to
the national income accounts figures. They showed that the economy was basically strong and was still pulling out of the 1960 recession. If, indeed, a tax
increase were imposed on the economy, it would heavily load the receipt side of the budget, drain off billions of dol lars that should be left in the private sector of the economy.
toward a tax increase. accounts were too national income from But the compelling and he sided with his "Troika" and rejected a
Kennedy's
own
political nature leaned
the figures
tax increase.
Since the symptoms of economic lethargy had not shown fully in his first year, Kennedy still talked hopefully of bal
ancing the budget. When he increased defense spending, he pledged a balanced budget for the coming year (fiscal 1963). In his second State of the Union message he promised it
again.
he submitted a budget calling for a $500 million surplus, though it was based on so many "ifs" that it could not be taken seriously. Yet, so strong was the virtue of a bal anced budget, Kennedy felt he had to at least make it ap
pear his goaL His education went on.
And
He
considered details as well as
broad principles. He sorted through the minutiae of the budget with David Bell as few presidents have done. He was sincere in trying to cut fat out of the requests, although his success was not great. He found that he could curtail re-
atj K
quests for the Forest Service and trim back the plans to build federal office buildings. When he noticed a request for more
White House gardeners, he asked how many gardeners the White House had. He was told six. "Six/' he exploded. "What do they need six gardeners for? I've got one man up in Hyannis Port who could do it all alone." The request was
denied.
in his budget work whenever he could. found that he was called into conference with Kennedy in automobiles, in airplanes, in the presidential bedrooms, in the Hyannis Port back yard, at Palm Beach, in the Oval Office, in the mansion, in the Rose Garden and along numer ous White House corridors. The most notable meeting in the early months took place the day after Thanksgiving, 1961,
Kennedy wedged
Bell
when Kennedy
Port,
and budget
presided over a six-hour session at Hyannis talk was woven into high policy matters.
One
of his staff
members suggested
that
Kennedy had
easily learned in his intensive training the equivalent of a postgraduate course in political economics at Princeton.
An
other aide "awarded"
him a doctor's degree from Harvard.

his instructors the
He won
his best
marks from
day he flew
to Yale to talk about his relationship with the business
com
left Washington without reinforcements. Nei munity. ther Walter Heller, the man with the facts, nor Ted Soren-
He
went along. Kennedy was solo. he noted a story in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that a budget deficit would bring inflation and encourage the flow of gold. Kennedy searched his mind and decided that this viewpoint did not jibe with the facts he had learned. It was true that in 1960 when there was a deficit the gold flow reached $5 billion annually. But
sen, the speech writer,
As he
flew to
New Haven
no inflation. And in 1958, another year of there had been no gold flow nor any inflation. budget debt, Kennedy decided that this was a case with which he might
there had been
illustrate the
theme
of his Yale talk that
many
of the old
economic cliches and myths needed to be abandoned. The President thought about the matter and then, taking one of the ever-present yellow legal pads, he began to write an insert for his speech. He wrote out the example from the Journal and then he thought of another. The week before,
CHAPTER TWENTY -SEVEN:

Wisconsin's Senator William Proxmire, a Yale graduate, had suggested that the United States should follow a stiff fiscal
and an easy monetary policy (low interest). The same week the International Bank in Basel, Switzerland, a highly conservative and knowledgeable organ
policy (budget balance)
ization representing the central bankers of Europe, suggested just the opposite. The point was that oversimplified labels
and
could not be used to explain such a problem. Kennedy had still another idea which he added. Many bankers in the previous fall had suggested that the debt for
cliches
fiscal
1962 would create strong inflationary pressures. Yet had been no inflation. Once again the old ideas, the pat answers had been wrong.
there
In all, Kennedy wrote out eight new large paragraphs, a seventh of the total speech. Kennedy's audience was not overwhelmed with them, but back in Washington Walter Heller was thoroughly delighted.
From an
economist's viewpoint, the
new
passage in the
speech was not only sound but eloquent. Early in 1962 there was evidence that the economy was not yet regaining full health. Not only did the government eco
nomic experts begin to talk about further action, but out side economists fretted too. The Ford Motor Company's
Vice President for Finance,
Ted Yntema, wondered

if
before
Kennedy's precariously balanced budget for fiscal 1963 was not too restrictive. He cited the national income accounts figures which showed a sizable surplus. Kennedy, he suggested, was running a risk
that the high receipts
the Joint Economic Committee
would have a depressive
effect
on the
economy. In the next few months there began to be some talk about a cut in taxes. It spread from Washington across the country as people became aware that the economy had a fever and was in danger of real sickness if something was not done.
The
But
it
idea for a tax cut took solid root
among
the experts.
was not accepted by others as easily as might be thought The nation's debt was $300 billion, a scary figure in the minds of most citizens, who could not find comfort in Kennedy's explanations that while large, it diminished in proportion to our economic capacity every year. (Since the
war, corporate indebtedness went

federal debt
up 200 per
cent while
15 per cent.) Eisenhower's stern pronouncements about balancing the budget and cutting spending had penetrated farther than many thought. "Not one American in a hundred can accept the fact that a budget deficit need not be bad," said Paul Samuelson.
mounted only
There were other complicating factors in this Kennedy dilemma. For a President to change his policy from the sim
ple and appealing slogan of a balanced budget to the compli cated economic jargon of a tax cut plus a huge deficit pre sents a political problem of monstrous size.
While the economists could
say, as
approach is never in one direction in a world [economics] of incomplete information/' Ken knew full well that nedy zigging and zagging in politics confidence. Even so, pressure for a tax cut be hardly inspired
one did, "A rational you have to zig and zag
came
so great
on the
New Frontier
that
its
leaders considered
asking Congress for a cut in the fall of 1962. Weeks before, Kennedy had launched a public education campaign to try to
win better public understanding of this "sophisticated" busi ness. His Yale speech had been the first round. Heller, Dillon, Bell and others took to the lecture circuit to win back business confidence, and there was headway. There was no headway, however, with the one man who counted most Wilbur Mills, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which must originate all tax meas
ures.
Mills found
no strong sentiment
for the tax cut
among
the
people or among congressmen. Further, his dream was to overhaul the tax laws completely to close loopholes and cut off special concessions. Though he was not fully against a
tax cut he was not for
it,
either.
And
he certainly was not
for a tax-rate reduction without tax reform.
Faced with
sistible force.
this
He
Kennedy became a re contented himself with announcing that

immovable
object,
he would seek a tax reduction in 1963. He set about prepar ing for what he knew would be the most difficult legislative problem he had yet faced. He could confidently predict that virtually everybody would find something in new tax pro posals to criticize and criticize harshly. Every man would
378
have
his special interest; the
poor would accuse the rich of
getting all the benefits, the rich
would charge that lowincome groups had preferred treatment, the middle groups would claim that they were ignored, business interests would complain that corporate taxes should be reduced more than proposed. Beyond that was his absolute irreverence for the fiscal shibboleths. A tax cut plus a huge debt was a terrifying
thing to try to explain. Kennedy went ahead.
possessed a cautious confidence hard study of the nation's economic
He
founded on his own problems and the vast array of expert advice with which he surrounded himself. Whatever one thought of his program, there was no denying by anyone that it represented a bold venture into the political unknown. Almost immediately
when he announced
program there was controversy. Busi nessmen claimed there should be more of a cut in corporate taxes, labor leaders shouted that there was not enough of a break for the low-income man.
his
Fortunately, Kennedy faced it with his humor intact. One day in January 1963 as the President worked at his economic message for Congress in which he spelled out an
swers to the critics of his economic program, he looked up at Walter Heller, red-eyed and weary from his long nights of work on the message. "Walter," said the President, "I want
to
make
it
perfectly clear that I resent these attacks
on you."
CHAPTER TWEXTY-EIGHT
THE OVAL OFFICE
TH
asked
E President balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, his hands thrust deeply into his coat pockets ("What
the hell
am
supposed to do with them?" he once
when reminded of this habit).
Six feet; 172 pounds; forty-five years old; a profusion of nondescript hair slightly out of control, strands of gray now
fringes; gray-blue eyes; sharp furrows springing from the corners of the eyes and carrying back to the ears; longer, deeper marks across the brow; coarse and weathered skin
on the
with a fading trace now of Florida sunshine; straight mouth; a vestige of a second chin a single human out of the world's almost three billion, selected in this staggering lottery by the
American
electorate to control
as
more power,
either destructive
or constructive
history.
he
is
may
choose
than any other

it is
man
in
The
terms
responsibility
It is
so vast that
incalculable
by any
we know.
more than one man should
bear, yet
we
have found no better way than to assign it to one man; a man we always hope is more than just human, but who never
is,
really.
For the moment he
is
John Kennedy.
weaknesses of his body are known. The bulge made a small corset worn for a weakened spine shows through by his shirt. The heel of his left shoe is built up a quarter of an
inch because his
left leg
The
was that
much
shorter than the
right leg. Every noon he drops two white pills into his palm and swallows them to compensate an insufficiency of his
Q on
CHAPTER TWENTY -EIGHT:

ill
adrenal glands, which were slightly impaired by earlier

nesses.
Kennedy can work twenty can without hours rest, go sleepless through a night, can drive himself as far as any of the men around him.
But despite these
troubles,
His judgment can falter. There was the Bay of Pigs to prove it. But there was the Cuban quarantine a year later to show that it can be solid. I stood beside him in the Oval Office and tried for a few
seconds to
sum him
time for
five years,
up, and then I gave it up as I had every because he is not a man who can be
summed
up, nor is the job, which consumes the man, some which can be summed up. thing There was an awêsome presence in that Oval Chamber which was then quiet, cool, sunlit the very heart of this na
tion's
meaning, the very core of freedom,

feet,
thirty-five feet
long
by twenty-eight
feeling of awe office senses it.
it,
four inches wide.
To
an outsider the
walks into that
is
always there
if
any
man who
and then
I wondered the President ever got used to decided that he never does either.
We
On
stood on the gray-green carpet, with the great

its
Ameri
can eagle woven in
center, just in front of his
oak desk.
the curving walls are naval paintings, ship models, the other mementos of Navy men. And in the niches and on the
tables
and
shelves
were scrimshawed whales'
teeth,
an amaz
ing collection which has poured in (some of it from places which didn't even have whales) when it became known he
liked to collect them.
There were eighteen of them, half of the complete denture of Moby Dick. By right of vesture there was in the slender figure in a
light-gray suit with the top button buttoned more than a president. There was the presidency, the accumulated wis
dom and courage and experience of the thirty-three other men who had gone before and the forged strength of 174
years of national development. You could see its symbols through the high windows behind the President's desk
the impatient traffic, bumper to bumper beyond the south lawn of the White House on Executive Avenue, the white
Monument, the airplanes gently lowering to National Airport beyond the Potomac. Every twenty-four hours now there were some 8,000 new
stone flanks of the Washington
The Owl
Office
og,
to the population rolls of this country, which al boasts 188 million. They were 8,000 souls and bodies, ready and somehow their ambitions and abilities entered that surg
names added
ing current of democracy which Kennedy embodied. If in his two years he had learned anything, it was that this boundless well of determination and talent was his when he needed to
draw on
it.
For a few seconds as he stared out into the clear blue of a spring sky he seemed to be paying tribute to this spirit that had endured, indeed grown in two years, he seemed to be
surveying the nation from end to end. He took his right hand out of his coat pocket and gestured toward the horizon. He had found the American people far calmer and their friendship far more enduring in his times of trouble than that of some of the lofty opinion makers. He
was thankful for it.

"I don't think the people are as mercurical out there as are in they Washington/' he said. "Impressions are longerlasting out there. In Washington there is a terrific change of temperature with each issue. That is all they do here. Out " there" the hand came up again there are other things that
are important." Yet the President felt that there was a national frustra tion because the country did not move along as fast as it
national problems
could or should go and because some of the persistent inter Cuba particularly remained unsolved. in a Living gray area, not being able to get decisive results
in the battle for men's minds, not being able to turn the tide decisively in our favor in the underdeveloped areas it was
all
Cuban quarantine," the President said, folding his arms across his chest, looking down. "It was exciting, it was a diversion; and there was the
feeling we were doing something. But that was an easy one. They didn't have to go. It might have been a different story
"The country
a long and tiring ordeal. rather enjoyed the
had been thousands killed in a long battle." walked to one of the couches that are in front of the fireplace and sat sideways, throwing an arm over the back and stretching his legs out over the cushions, a careless kind
if
there
He
of position that showed that his diligent exercise in the tiny
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
White House gym had greatly strengthened his back. The Kennedy rocking chair stood, for the moment, empty on his left, a symbol of him and his administration. It now had the full status of F.D.R/s cigarette holder and Ike's stetson. In deed, there now were many distinguishing features of the
Kennedy government. So far that government had been cautious of change, dis tressingly close (to some Democrats) to the center of that road which Eisenhower had cautiously walked. Kennedy had brought no social upheaval as Roosevelt did, and there was none in sight. He set his task as strengthening and enlarging the existing institutions and ideas. He had shunned the political free-for-all that F.D.R. liked so well. Kennedy would not attack Congress, as the liberals in his own party pleaded with him to do, and as Roosevelt had done with relish. He had neither the charter from the
voters
nor the inclination for such a battle. He calculated that he could only lose in the long run, that these were not the 1930'$, that this age was too perilous for unnecessary in
ternal brawling.
He
still
sought something that the historians like to term
"national unity," a condition of general support from the many segments of the population. He sought this unity openly, despite the fact that history shows all the great presi dents of the past presided over deeply divided countries, that
they were forced to achieve their programs painfully over
vigorous and noisy opposition. But Kennedy had patiently repeated that this was another time and really another world,
and he pointed
extinction.
to the persistent outside threat of nuclear
John Kennedy, it Is clear, recaptured all the power and more which Dwight Eisenhower ladled out to his Cabinet
officers.
In
fact,
Kennedy
in the
first
weeks nearly put the
Cabinet on the shelf as far as being a force in policy mat ters, and he rarely bothered to dust it off. His government
became a government by function, not by organizational

chart.
public opinion (amid no little criticism) by adding the televised press conference and the intimate on-camera interviews at the end of the year. No
He strengthened his hold on
The Oval
official
Office
face has ever
become so much a part of the American
consciousness.
He
and
gave academicians
new
status.
When
he turned to
the problems of the economy he tended to accept the charts figures of his experts rather than the hunches of the less
educated.
And Kennedy added
seen before in this country's capital.
a style that had never been He surrounded himself
with bright, handsome, gay people, all activists, who worked and played hard, and the effect produced overtones of the
eighteenth-century English aristocracy and perhaps removed the presidency for all time from the log-cabin tradition. Kennedy presented a picture of total urbanity, the first true
America at the mid-century, a country of city dwellers long gone from Main Street. Was the new effect good? There was no simple or single answer. Each person must make his own conclusions, but the persistent Dr. Gallup found that between 60 and 70 per cent of the voters he talked to said that Kennedy was doing a good job. Overseas, there had been a measurable rise in his
reflection in the presidency of
prestige.
By Kennedy's own
a
little less
calculation, his
problems had become
explosive; the world seemed to be in a better state; even some of the harshest critics confessed that, in
the spring of 1963. Yet
all
was not well and Kennedy knew
it
not," was his cautious
off, but in some ways we are comment from across the coffee table. A deep pride in the state of our armed forces really was the biggest factor in the underlying serenity. Our superiority in
"In some ways
we
are better
missiles,
our improved conventional fighting capability and
new emphasis on guerrilla warfare, all carefully tailored by Robert McNamara, re-established confidence in our strength. In Southeast Asia the enemy had been engaged on his own terms, and though there still was no victory in Viet nam or Laos, we were no longer losing. There was a peace of
the
sorts in Central Africa and Berlin had quieted. Though Latin America still was in deep trouble, there was new interest and what appeared to be new resolve by the Latin countries them selves to tackle their problems. We were at last competitors in the space race. And Russia now had new and serious politi-
CHAPTER TWENTY -EIGHT:

and economic problems to be solved by an aging and edgy Khrushchev. There were those around Kennedy who concluded that the post-Sputnik communist offensive had been turned back, that the USSR now was in the same kind of disarray in which the United States found herself in early
cal
1961.
But the problems never had gone away, and though they had changed somewhat in character, they had lost little in size. Of these the worst was the Russian presence in Cuba and its domestic political overtones, which were almost as tor menting as the fact and the frustration of having Soviet troops and weapons ninety miles from our shores and no workable idea of how to get them out. There was the discour
aging
fact of Charles
de Gaulle's
intractability, the confusion
in the Atlantic alliance and the disputes among the Common Market nations. At home, Kennedy's tax program and his
budget with
very fact that
huge debt was under severe attack. Yet the people could worry about such things rather than battles being lost in the Vietnam jungles or troops crossing the Autobahn to West Berlin was an improvement.
its
In
fact,
no problem
was, in this spring of 1963, so immediately

full crisis.
threatening as to
be called a
the diversity and the complexity of the United States involvement in this world still made Kennedy marvel.
The extent,
"We have so many interests and we are tied up with gov ernments in every part of the world/* he mused. "How many people in this country had even heard of Yemen a few months ago? Yet, what happens there affects us ... we have a tremendous job in a world as varied as ours/' His talk on this day indicated he still was awed by the power that came with the office, not so much by the oppor
tunity for affirmative action, like the Cuban blockade, but by the indirect effect of his actions and ideas on the national
life.
test
He had simply suggested the fifty-mile hike as a good of a person's physical fitness and the entire country had taken to the road to show him they could do it. Now he had
grown concerned about the
effects
actually
on the uncondi
tioned populace. Kennedy talked calmly, with his hands clasped around a knee. He didn't like the questions; he called them "reflec-
The Oval
tive
Office
o^
and he had always had an aversion to could talk best about more specific matters, al though he was better now than he had ever previously been about "reflective" matters perhaps another effect of his job. He said he was constantly impressed by the fact that
questions,"
them.
He
many of the important people of this country are so sensitive over the disputes we get into with friendly countries and allies. There should be, he thought, a little more calm and
patience as we try to find our way in the complexities of this world. Too often, the President felt, when argument flares
that their country is wrong. overcame him, and he jumped up and walked Impatience to the French doors that look out into the flower garden, be ginning now to turn green. The doors were open to the spring air. Some things about Kennedy will never change, and one of them is his obsession with fresh air and sunshine. He is drawn mystically to them, he insists on them; he is ad dicted to them. He stands, he sits, he works in the sun and air whenever he can. He stood then breathing the spring smell as if it were the only nourishment he needed. "You've got to co-ordinate so many agencies," he said. "This is the burden of the White House." He and his brother
Americans assume
Bob had
seen
it
clearest after the
Bay of
Pigs,
when they had

might
discovered that not enough people
knew what other people
operation of this government now involve the Departments of State, Defense, Treasury,
were doing.
One
Com
merce, Justice, plus the independent agencies of the Budget, the CIA, Food for Peace, AID. It is the White House's job
to
mold
these segments into a workable organism for the
particular problem.
"Life
is
bit; then he stopped and looked ahead. harsh in the undeveloped world," he said. "That our most critical problem. Somehow we've got to change
Kennedy paced a
is
that. If the
communists win once in those areas it is almost impossible then to throw them out." He mentioned Cuba
Invade? Blockade the island totally? The President looked and shook his head no. "That sort of stuff get from Bairy Goldwater. It's a familiar refrain." War
as the example.
at the floor again

I
just to rid a
limping and sick country of a few thousand So-
ggg
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
viet troops that under current conditions could do little damage in this hemisphere was, by the Kennedy mathema
tics,
not worth the price.
that was vital right then and vital he declared. That was the health of the econ omy. "The domestic economy is key," he said simply. It is key to our military strength, it is key to our foreign
to everybody,
There was one thing
policy and it is everything to that haunting imperative, "Let's get this country moving again."
"The
get
it
tax bill
is
so important,"
he
said. "I
think
we
will
we
but we are not getting as much help from business as should the problem is solvable if congress will give
.
.
us the power." His own future was hinged to the economy, too.
really
He had
planned no
program
silence.
political strategy yet for 1964 beyond the of his administration. "If we can get through 1964
.
.
without a recession
."
he began, and then he
fell
into
Perhaps the question was unnecessary, but I had never heard an unequivocal answer, so I asked him. Would he run in 1964 and how did he think the election would go? He swung his head sharply and looked at me, maybe just a bit offended that there should be any question. Then he
grinned.
"What do you
think?"
Kennedy
said.
He
crossed his arms
again, turned back to the view through the open doors and seemed to smile slightly as he thought of the prospect of a
big political year. "Politically, the country is closely divided, so it will be tough. But then everything is tough."
INDEX
Abboud, Ferik Ibrahim, 260
Abel, Rudolf, 289
Attorney General, See nedy, Robert F.

Auchincloss,
Ken
Acheson, Dean,
34 1
16, 167, 210,
Hugh D., 49
Ausbrook, Perry, 32
Ayres, William H., 94
15-6
Adams, Abigail, 278 Adams, Sherman, /n.

Adams, Thomas, 258
Ayuk Khan, Mohammed,

84-5,
220
Adenauer, Konrad, 340

Adzhubei, Alexie, 213, 285
Aga Khan,
92
Bailey, Cleveland, 357
Agriculture, Secretary of, See
Freeman, Orville
Albert, Carl, 48
Bailey,
John M., 87, Baird, Howard, 34

Ball,
88,
89
Alexandre, 182
George W.,
328
32, 267, 285,
Alphand,Herve,82,266
Alphand, Mme. Herv, 180
Alsop, Joseph, 41
Barnett, Ross, 317-8, 320, 321

Bartlett, Charles L., 98,
276
American Medical
352
Association,
Bay of Pigs,
125, 126, 130-5,
327> 385
American
Society of
News
Bayh, Birch, 335, 361, 364
paper Editors,
Anderson,
137, 139
Beak,
Betty, 61
Anderson, George, 328, 339

J.
Beall, Glenn, 4
Bell,
Loy, 31
B., 28,
David
E., 8, 18, 46, 120,
Anderson, Robert
38
121,122,229,374*375
Anfuso, Victor, /n. 26
Bcn-Gurion, David, 173

Berle, Adolf, 30, 132,
Angola, 79
Arbenz, Jacobo, 126
Arends, Leslie, 324
an
Berlin, 57,
1% 179-8, *99
206, 208-9, 210, 216, 217,
Aron, Raymond, 168

Arthur, Chester A., 278
218,223-5,227,230,231,
233-5236-41,246-7,261,
Atomic Energy Commission,

243
266
Bethe, Hans, 284
INDEX
Bethlehem
Steel Corporation,
*99> 3 01 3 02
Burke, Arleigh, 72, 99, 126, 132, 228 Burke, Frank, 360
Burkley, George, 209 Bush, Vannevar, 116
Business Advisory Council,
291, 292, 307
Bhabha, Homi, 112

Billings, K. Lemoyne, 218,
276
Bissell,
Richard,
Jr., 12-3, 125,
130, 131, 132
Block, Joseph L., 301
Business Council, 307
Block, Leigh B., 301

Block, Philip D., 301
Byrd, Harry R, 172
Blough, Roger, 291, 292, 293-4,

296, 298, 300, 301, 302, 303,
Cabell, Charles, 130, 132

Cafritz,
305,306,309,311
Boggs, Hale, 340
Gwen, 275
Canada, 165-6
Bohlen, Catherine, 280

Bohlen, Charles E. (Chip), 24,
58, 78, 138, 141, 164, 167,
168, 189-90, 202
Cannon, Joseph, 4 Capehart, Homer, 335, 361

Caramanlis, Constantine, 138
Boiling, Richard, 60
Cardona, Miro, 137 Carter, Marshall Sylvester, 326,

327, 328, 329
Casals, Pablo, 277
Cassini, Oleg, 95, 182
Boun Oum,
76
Bowles, Chester, 77, 150, 215-6,
226,227,285,371
Bradlee,
Benjamin
C.,
63
Castro, Fidel, 124, 127, 128,

129, 161, 198,
Brandt, Willy, 234

Brinkley, David, 80
346
Catledge, Turner, 139

(Pat), 91,
Brown,
3*5
Edmund G.
Catton, Bruce, 269

Cecil,
Lord David, 65
Brown, Frederic J., 239

Bruce, David K. E., 16
Celler, Eraanuel, 88
Central Intelligence Agency,

12, 126, 128, 130, 136,
Bruno, Jerry, 91
Buckley, Charles, 88
141, 145,228
Budget, national, 365-6, 373-5,
Chattanooga Times, 98 China (Communist), 75,

348
181,
Bundy, McGeorge, 47,
50, 58,
78, 138, 151, 168, 190, 240,
Churchill, Sir Winston, 65
242, 245, 265, 275, 326-7,
CIA, See Central Intelligence
3*8, 335, 336, 547
Agency
INDEX
Clarke, Bruce C., /n. 234, 236,
237, 238, 239, 240
389
Cugat, Xavier, 29
Clay, Lucius D., 238, 241, 246
Clay Pigeons of
St.
Loy The
Dale, Edwin, 370
(Johns), 236
Cleveland, Harlan, 58
Clifford, Clark, 12, 17, 28, 64,
Daley, Richard, 43, 338

Daniel, Price, 91 Daniel, William, 91
91,295,301,302,311
Clifton, Chester V., 82, 112,
Day, J. Edward, 6
130
Clifton,
Dean, Arthur H.,
71, 167,
of,
244
Ted,
240, 241
of,
Defense, Secretary
See McS.
Commerce, Secretary
See
Namara, Robert
de Gaulle, Charles,
Hodges, Luther H.
82* 162, 167,
Common Market,
ville), 57-8,
the, 369,
370
176-81, 183-5, 186-7, 188-9,
Congo, Republic of (Leopold248
340, 384
DeSapio, Carmine, 87, 88
Congress (88th), 3-4

Congress (Syth), 350-2, 354
Congressional election of 1962,
352-64
Dewey, Thomas
E., 18
Diefenbaker, John, 165, 166
Diem, Ngo Dinh, 263

Dillon, C. Douglas, 38, 221, 229,
280, 295, 300, 307, 310, 311, 316, 328, 369, 372, 374
Cooley, Harold, 91
Cooper, Alfred Duff, 247 Cooper, Mrs. John Sherman,

275
Dilworth, Richardson, 361

Dirksen, Everett, 221
DiSalle, Mike, 361
Council of Economic Advisers,
3% 37
Corcoran,
Dixon, Paul R., 299
Tommy,
46
Docking, George, 90
Cox, A. W., 356-7 Cox, Archie, 47
Dominican Republic, 187-8 Donovan, James B., 289

Donovan, Robert,
fn.
Cuba,
124-44, 161, 198, 324-48,
219
381,384,385-6
Douglas, Paul H., 30

Douglas, William O., 15
Cuban Brigade 2506, 135 Cuban refugees, U.S. military

training of, 12-3, 125, 126,
Dowling, Walter, 240
Dryden, Hugh, 120, 121, 122
127
Cuban Revolutionary
133
Council,
Duke, Angier Biddle, 23 Duke, Joseph C., 4

Dulles, Allen, 12-3, 57, 78, 125,
39
Dulles, Allen (continued)
*
INDEX
Foster, William, 252
132, 136, 146, 187, 221, 228,
Fowler, Henry, 299

Fraser,
242, 255, 274
Don, 361
Riders, 170
Dulles,
John
Foster, 56, 72, 153

8,
Frear, J. Allen, 90
Dungan, Ralph A.,

Dutton, Fred, 91
18
Freedom
Freeman, Arthur, 64 Freeman, Orville,

Frost, Robert,
19,
90
40
Economist,
The London, 370

S., 7,
Fulbright, J. William, 16, 127,

129, 341
Economy, U.
292, 309-15,
324> 353-4>
3^ 37>372-8
Gagarin, Yuri, 112, 115, 119,
157
39,
Eisenhower, Dwight David, /n.

15-6, 18, 28, 37-8, 39, 40,
73, 143-4, 254, 308-9, 320,
340, 359* 377, 3 8 2
Eisenhower,
95>
Mamie Dowd,
Jr.,
Galbraith, John Kenneth, 23,

369, 37 1
274
63
Evans, Rowland,
Gates,
Thomas S.,
38
Gee, Arthur, 267

Gildner, Jay, 298
Farm Bureau, 352

Fay, Paul B., Jr. (Red), 64, 90,
273, 276 FBI, See Federal Bureau of
Gilpatric, Roswell, 150, 245,
264, 266, 328 de Givenchy, Hubert, 186
Glenn, John H.,
Jr.,
289
Investigation
Goldberg, Arthur, 38, 229, 291,

292, 293-5, 296, 299, 301,
Federal Bureau of Investiga

tion,
299
8, 173,
302
Goldfine, Bernard, fn. 15-6
Feldman, Myer (Mike),

273
Felt,
Goldwater, Barry, 151, 385

Goodpaster,
Harry, 75, 76
Andrew J., 52
Finley,
David
E.,
47
Goodwin, Richard, 211

Gordon, Kermit, 369
Gore, Albert, 28, 282, 295,
Fleming, Ian, 66, 273

Folliard, Eddie, 158-9
Ford, Gerald R.,

Ford, Henry,
II,
Jr.,
4
16
14,
296
Grace, Princess, of Monaco, 170
/.
Ford Motor Company,

fn. 16
Graham,
Billy, 33-4,
36
Graham, Henry,
171
INDEX
Great Price Conspiracy, The
(Herling), 309
39
Hoban, James, 278
Hodges, Luther H.,
311
14, 300,
Grewe, Wilhelm, 266
Gromyko, Andrei,
81, 82-3, 165,
Hoegh, Leo, 232

Hoeven, Charles
B., 3-4
191,251,257,261-2,334,
340
Hoffa, James (Jimmy), 149

301
Holifield, Chet, 209
Gudeman, Edward,
Guerra
Da
Guerrials, La
Hooker, John
Hoover,
J.,
91
31,
(Guevera), 74 Guerrilla Warfare, the Irish
Hoover, Herbert,
340
J. Edgar, 15
Republican Army, 74
Guevera, Che, 74
Hovde, Frederick, 30
Guihard, Paul, 317
Guthman, Edwin
O., 289
Hoxha, Enver, 191 Hughes, Harold E., 363 Humphrey, Hubert H.,
167
48,
Huntley, Chet, So
Hackett, David, 90
Halleck, Charles, 324, 325
Haminarskjold, Dag, 248-50,
Inland Steel Corporation, 301 Interior, Secretary of the, See

Udall, Stewart L.
International Bank, Basil,
Switzerland, 376
Iran,
Hamilton, Fowler, 101
Harriman, Averell,
210
164, 198,
Harris, Seymour, 368
Shah
of,
300
Hatcher, Andrew, no, 157,

158, 294, 297, 298
Hayden, Carl, 39
Health, Education and
fare, Secretary of,
Wel
Jackson, Andrew, 92, 93, 278

Jaipur, Maharajah
Jefferson,
of,
8,
See
344
Ribicoff,
Abraham A.
Thomas,
278
Heinkel, FredV., 19
Heller, Walter W., 29, 229,
Johns, Glover
S., Jr.,
236, 238
Johnson, Alexis, 328

Johnson, Lyndon Baines, 24,
36,48,53,60,78,118,132,
158, l6l, 164, 170, 187, 221,
295 *96, 299, 301-2, 307,
3% 37' 372, 374* 375'

37^, 378
Herling, John, 308-9

Herter, Christian A., 28, 38
235, 238, 239, 240, 241, 296,

>
35
392
Joint Economic Committee
(of Congress), 369,
INDEX
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald
(continued)
223-5, 227, 230, 231, 234-5,
236-7, 240-1, 246, 247, 261,
376
Judd, Walter, 361
266; cabinet selection,
n-
Kasavubu, Joseph, 57
Katanga, 248
20; character, 11, 66, 67;
and Chester Bowles,

226, 227;
215-6, 58;
Katzenbach, Nicholas, 299,
Congo
crisis,
316,317,319,320
Keating, Kenneth, 324
Keesee, Paul, 267-8
congressional elections of
1962, 325, 329, 330, 335,
336-8, 352-64; congres
Kefauver, Estes, 295, 299

Keita,
sional reaction
to, 7;
Cuba,
Modibo, 248 Kekkonen, Urho Kaleva, 277 Kennan, George, 164

Kennedy, Caroline,
25, 63, 83,
124-55* *54> 161, 324-48,
Cuban prisoner exchange, 172; Cuban ref

381, 385-6;
ugees, military training of,

12-3; declines to associate
103, 138-9,255-6,257,265
Kennedy, Edward Moore,

3 2 3 35 6 3&2
6,
with actions of preceding

administration, 28;
De
Kennedy, Ethel (Mrs. Robert

F.),
fense speech, July, 1961,

223-5, 229-32; diplomatic
45> 62, 273, 274, 323
Kennedy, Jacqueline (Mrs.
allowances, 23-6; economic

attitudes
John
F.), 4, 5, 6, 25, 26-7,
and understand
39,41,44,62,63,66,69,
103, 192, 194, 200-2, 247,
ing, 259, 267-8, 291-2, 304-
305, 311-4, 324, 365-78, 386;
*5 6 > 257, 272, 2 75* 276-7,

287, 289, 323-4, 344;
life as
home
87th Congress, 350-2, ex^ pansion of the House
President's wife,
Rules Committee, 60; fa

vorite books, 65-6;
first
92-7; restoration of White
House
interior, 47-8, 278-
Cabinet meeting,
days in
office,
54-5; first
first
283; with President in Paris

(1961), 176-89
43-55;
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald: ad ministrative style, 68; back
Presidential press confer ence, 50-2; formation of
government,
9-10, 11-20;
ground and training for

presidency, 10-1; Berlin, 57,
169, 206, 210, 216, 217, 218,
freeing of RB-47 pilots, 43-4, 51-3; freeing of U-2

pilot, 289; guerrilla
war-
INDEX
(continued)
fare, 73-4, 286; health, 166,
393
(continued)
12; race relations, 316-22;
J73' 20 5> 209> 279-80;
reaction to last Eisenhower
"hold firm but probe
budget, 36; reading habits,

65; "reasoning together,"
53; reflections
around the edges,"
53, 140;
inauguration, 39-41; In
on the Ko
re
augural address, 40-1; in

formation, constant quest
for, 66;
est in
rean War, 70-1; reflections
on the Berlin Airlift, 70;

as symbol, 382; S.O.B.
story, 294, 308; space
Khrushchev, inter
plans for
ports for, 30; rocking chair,
and
meet
ing, 162-9,
meeting with,
to, 202-
ex
191-201, reaction
ploration, 59, 110-23, 157158; Special

sage,
204, 206, 226-7, report to
Defense
Mes
the nation on meeting, 205; Laos, 53, 7 1,74-85, 169;
March, 1961, 73;
special message
on "urgent
Laos statement,
78-81;
national needs," 123;
meeting with de Gaulle,

175-90;
speech at Arlington
meeting with Khru
Na tional Cemetery, Novem

1
shchev, 191-201; meetings
ber
1,
1961, 269;
and the
with Macmillan,
81-2, 203;
State Department, 149-151,

214, 285-6; State of the
memos,
66-7; military strat
egy concepts, 73-4, 286;
Union Message
372;
8, 9; State
(1961), 7,
"monetary and
fiscal,"
of the
Union
"national unity/' 382; news
Message
(special, 1961),
guidance by, 99-102;
New
242-
of the 155, 172; State
York State
nuclear
politics, 87-9;
Union Message
Message (1963),
(1962),
tests, 167, 169,
288; State of the
Union
4-7; steel
246, 247, 264-6, 284-5, 290;
patronage, 86-91; personal
wealth of 32, 366-7; phi "Plan Five," losophy, 125;

f
price rise, 291-308; force" reports, 30; tax re
"Task-
duction,
7,
324, 353-4' 3 66
84-5; Press relations, 69, 98-
104, 108-9,
b*-y>
on Pres-
vised press conferences, 31,

49-54; U.S. capacity to sur
sure groups, 60-1, 228, 352;

private
life,
61, 94-7, 272-8,
vive
and succeed,
270-1; va
I.,
383; Profiles in Courage,
cation in Newport, R.
394
(continued)
252-8; visit to
166; visit to
INDEX
Khrushchev, Nikita (continued) 162-9; meeting with Ken
nedy, 191-201; Kennedy's
reaction
to, 202-6,
Canada, 165202-7;
London,
226-7
visit to Paris, 175-90; visit
Kiernan,
Thomas J.,
94
to Vienna, 191-202;
Why
King, Martin Luther, 170, 171

Kissinger, Henry, 66, 168
England Slept, 368; wit, 64-5, 217-8, 287; work

ing hours
of,
Klotz, Herb, 153
62
27
Koehler, Herbert, 88
Kennedy, John
F., Jr., 25,
Kohler, Foy, 150, 190

Kraus, Hans, 273
Krylov, Ivan Andrevich, 262
Kennedy, Joseph
P., 14, 15, 20-
23,31,39,49,219,287-8,
366, 370-1
Kuchel, Thomas, 340

P., 176,
Kennedy, Mrs. Joseph

185
Kennedy, Robert Francis,
6, 18,
Labor, Secretary
of,
See Gold
19, 130-1, 132, 135-6, 141,
berg, Arthur A.
142-3, 161, 170, 187, 188,
Labor-Management Advisory
Committee, 301, 306
221,233,245,272,274,275,
95> *99> 3*3> 328, 329,
33>
Lanahan,
Scottie, 275
366, 374, 385; enlargement
Lanin, Lester, 92, 288

Laos, 57, 74-85, 152, 169, 181,
198, 205
of
House Rules Commit
tee, 60, 67-8;
New York
nom
Gen
State patronage, 87;
Laski,
Harold J., 368

29, 99
13,
ination as Attorney
Lawford, Peter,
eral, 14-5; as presidential
Lawrence, William H.,
98
adviser, 145-51; race rela

tions, 316-8, 320-2
Lehman, Herbert, 87
LeMay,
132
Curtis, 214, 228
Kenworthy, E.
339
Kerr, Robert
W.
(Ned), 297,
Lemnitzer,
Lyman L.,
38, 126,
S.,
24, 267, 311
Kharlamov, Mikhail,
198, 213
57, 85,
Libby, Willard, 232 Liberal Hour, The (Galbraith),
Khrushchev, Nikita, 27,
66
Life, 276
175, 179, 208, 224, 225, 233,
237, 241-2, 286, 333, 342,

345* 346-7* 348, 3 8 4;
Lincoln, Abraham, 278, 279
Ken
Lincoln, Mrs. Evelyn N., 34, 37,

1
nedy's plans for meeting,
57> 303
INDEX
Lippmann, Walter, 165, 167
Little Rock, Arkansas, 320
395
McCone, John,
101, 228, 259,
311,328,329,341
Loevinger, Lee, 299
McCormack, John W., 5, 48

McDonald, David,
292, 295
Longest Day, The (Ryan), 40, 66
Longworth, Mrs. Nicholas,

221
Loveless, Herschel, 90
McGhee, George, 285 McGovern, George, 90, 363
McHugh,
250
Godfrey, 133, 249,
Lovett, Robert A., 16, 311
McKinney, Joseph, 88
Lukens
Steel
Company, 301
McKone, John
R., 51-3, 56
S., 6, 14,
Lumumba,
Patrice, 57
McNamara, Robert
18-9,38,74,78,132,155,
187,210,216,221,295,
299,300,301,311,328,
MacArthur, Douglas,
MacKenzie,
Sir
154, 225
329, 334-5 3 8 3
Gompton, 303
81-2, 162,
Meany, George, 277

Medicare, 351
Macmillan, Harold,
203, 244, 340
Melbourne
(Cecil), 65,
273
Madison, Dolly, 278, 282-5

Magrory, Mary, 314-5
Menshikov, Mikhail,
82, 163
40, 63,
Maher, James L., 253-4 Maloney, Arthur S., 253, 255

Malraux, Andr, 185
Meredith, James H., 316-22

Mesta, Perle, 275
Miami Herald,
17,
1
162
Manhattan Project,
122
19,
Middleton, Drew, 163

Miller,
Mills,
William
(Fishbait),
Mansfield, Mike, 48, 221
Wilbur, 324, 377
Marshall, Burke, 316, 320 Marshall, George C., 240
Minow, Newton N., 32

Mississippi, University of,
Martin,
Edmund,
299, 301,
316-22
328 Martin, William McChesney,
Missouri Farmers Union, 19

Mitchell, George W., 372
311,372
Molotov, Vyacheslav M., 191
Maryland Crabcakes, 4 Matthews, H. Freeman, 192

McClellan, John,
14,
Monroe, James,
278, 280
145
Montgomery, Alabama, 320 Moore, Arch, Jr., 357

Morgenthau, Robert, 361, 364
Morison, Elting, 66
McClosky, Matt, 355
McCloy, John
J.,
71, 233
396
Mount Vernon,
Mundt, Karl
E.,
INDEX
220-2
Nixon, Richard,
10, fn. 13, 39,
90
41, 151,228-9,257,304,
Murphy,
Charles, 91
3^5 3 6 *
Norstad, Lauris, 239, 240
Murphy, "Happy" (Mrs.

Nelson A. Rockefeller),
3 64
North Atlantic Treaty Organ

ization, 164, 183-5, 230, 242
Notte,
John
A., 253
Nathalie, 182
National Aeronautics and
OAS, See Organization

American
States
of
Space Administration, 118 National Association of

Manufacturers, 287, 304
Obote, Milton, 341

O'Brien, Lawrence
F. (Larry),
National Income Accounts
5,12,18,60,87,88,89,
267,299,306,316,338,
3 6 3> 3 6 4 3 6
68,
(Commerce Department),
373 National Security Council,
O'Donnell, P. Kenneth
(Kenny), 71, 133-4,214,
69,74, 147, 157,215,265,
284
National Space Council, 1 18 NATO, See North Atlantic
291,293,294,316,338 O'Hurley, Mrs. Raymond, 166

Olmstead, Freeman
B., 51-3
Treaty Organization
Necessity
-for
On Moral Courage (Macken

zie),
Choice,
The
303
(Kissinger), 66
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 274

Nelson, Gaylord, 361
Nestingen, Ivan A., 9 1
Operations Co-ordinating Board, 68

Organization of American
States, 135, 342,
347
Neustadt, Richard, 48
Oxford, Mississippi, 316-22
New Frontier, the, 6, 9, 31, 46,

101, 157, 165,211,265,272,
288,304,311,323,351
Paar, Jack, 108

Parish, Mrs. Helen, 47
"News Focus"
(Bartlett),
276
New York Herald

New
Tribune,
Pathet Lao, 80, 85

Patterson, John, 170-1
51-2,227,260,300,311 York Times, The, 10,

99-100, 112,308
Peabody, Endicott (Chub), 363

Pearce, Lorraine, 280, 282, 283
Nitze, Paul H., 58, 150, 328
Pearson, Drew,
12,
308
INDEX
397
Pell,
Mrs. Claiborne, 253 Person, Gustav, 28

Persons, Wilton B. (Jerry), 28
Rockefeller, Nelson A., 151,
36l > 3 6 4
Rockne, Knute, 225

Rogers, William,
15,
Phoumi Nosavan,
76-7
309
Poland, 199 Postmaster General, See Day, J.
Romney, George,
Rooney, John
J.,
361, 364
23-6
Edward
Powell, Adam Clayton, 357
Roosa, Robert, 369

Roosevelt, Eleanor,
8,
88
Powers, David
F., 170, 177, 218,
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano,

17, 22, 32,
223, 224, 225, 246, 265, 368
382
Powers, Francis Gary, 289

Prendergast, Mike, 87
Presidential Power, the Pol
itics
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano,

Jr., 44,
22 1,257
Roosevelt, Theodore, 281
of Leadership
Rostow, Walt Whitman, 46,

47,57,141,248-9,272,275,
285, 369
(Neustadt), 48
Princi, Peter
Profiles in
W., 255
(J.
Courage
F.
Rotzell, Oliver B., 355-6
Kennedy), 12
Project Mercury,
1
Rules Committee, House of

19,
157
Representatives, 60, 352
Proxmire, William, 376
Rusk, Dean,
9, 16-7, 18, 38, 54,
PT 109 (Donovan), /n. 219
57-8* 77* 78,
79 8 *,
W>
132, 138, 164, 167, 168, 187, 188, 190, 197, 201, 203, 214,
216, 228, 242, 251, 257, 262,
Radice, Joseph A., 253

Radziwill, Lee (Princess
Stanislaus), 92, 93, 95, 185
285, 328, 329, 341
Russell, Richard, 341
Russia, See
cialist
Union of Soviet So
Republics
Ranier, Prince, of Monaco, 170
Rayburn, Sam
Taliaferro, 5,
Ryan, Cornelius, 66
45-6, 48, 60, 221, 260, 263,
270, 350
Reston, James B. (Scotty), 99,

163, 299, 339
St.
Louis Post Dispatch, 311
Salinger, Pierre E. G., 18, 29,
Rhodes, James A., 361 Ribicoff, Abraham Alexander,

2*9> 374
30,49,50,51-2,57,78,99,
100-1, 111-3, 133, 14 1 * *53>
162, 176, 180, 187, 198, 205,
Roa, Raul, 129
213,250,260,273-4,287,
398
Salinger, Pierre E. G.
INDEX
Sorensen, Theodore C. (Ted)
(continued)
362, 372, 375
(continued)
289,
34,
34*> 344> 359
Salisbury, Harrison, 213
South Vietnam,
57, 161, 263-4
Samuelson, Paul, 369, 377
Sandburg, Carl, 264

Scharf, Adolf, 192
Southeast Asia Treaty Organ ization, 80
Souvanna Phouma,
Jr., 8,
Prince, 77
Schlesinger, Arthur M.,
Sparkman, John J., 40

Spaulding, Charles
206, 276
F., 23, 161,
133,211,575,323,371 Schrot, A. T., 66

Scranton, William, 361, 364
Seaborg, Glenn, 245 SEATO, See Southeast Asia
Sprayberry, Mrs. Edith, 246

Stahr, Elvis, 286
State, Secretary of,
See Rusk,
Treaty Organization
Seigenthaler, John, 90
Dean
State of the
Union Message
9
Sharkey, Joseph, 88
(1961), 7,8,
Shepard, Alan
B., 157-9
State of the
Union Message
Shepard, Tazewell, 289

Shriver, Eunice (Mrs. Sargent),
185, 203, 288
(special, 1961), 155, 172
State of the
Union Message Union Message

257
16, 54, 58,
(1962), 288
12, 18
1
Shriver, Robert Sargent, Sinatra, Frank, 29, 39, 31
State of the
(1963), 4-7
Steers, Ivan,
Six Crises (Nixon), fn. 13

Slichter,
Sumner, 368
Stevenson, Adlai E.,
Slye, Walter, 256
81,82, 129,265,328,344
Smathers, George A., 33, 48 Smith, Albert Merriman, 98,

108
Stimson, Henry, 66
Sukarno, Ahmed, 248

Swainson, John, 361 Swan, The Pike and
fish,
Smith, Earl E. T., 90

Smith, Howard, 67-8
The Cray
339
The
(Krylov), 262
C., Jr.,
Smith, Stephen, 161, 289

Snyder, Gene, 360
Sorensen, Theodore C. (Ted), 5,
9, 12, 16, 18,
Sweeney, Walter
Swindal, James, 253

Sylvester, Arthur, 32
34,50, 104, 120,
Symington, Stuart,
12,
221
121, 138, 148, 178, 190, 229,
273, 285, 296, 297, 299, 302,

316, 328, 329, 350, 338-9,
Talleyrand (Cooper), 247
INDEX
Taylor, Maxwell, 142, 146, 211,
212, 216, 227, 263-4, 272,
399
Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (continued)
85, 111-7, i79**8o, *8i,
328
Tebaldi, Renata, 93
241-2, 244, 245, 264, 324,
Thailand, 161
Thant, U, 344, 345
33-3> 34 *-*> 346 3 84> See also Khrushchev

43, 60,
35
Thompson, Llewellyn,
United Nations,
United
57-8, 248,
85,164, 165,189,193,328
Tiffany, Louis Comfort, 278
250-1,262,344,345,547
States
Chamber of
Time, 227
Tobin, James, 299, 368, 369,
37i
Travel!, Janet, 49, 173, 177,
205, 209
Commerce, 352 United States Information

Agency, 23 United States Steel Corpora*
tion, 291, 298, 299, 302,
305
Treasury, Secretary of the, See

Dillon, C. Douglas
United
Steel
Workers,
stg*
Unrah,
Jesse, 363
Trujillo Molina Rafael
Urban Affairs, Department of,

not established, 351
Jr.,
Leonidas, 187
Trujillo, Rafael Leonidas,
188
Truman,
Bess, 95, 274

S., 12,
Van Buren,
42, 43,
Martin, 278
Truman, Harry
Vance, Cyrus, 319
82,265,274,281,308,340 Truman, Margaret, 280

Tse-tung, Mao, 74, 191 Turmoil and Tradition
(Morison), 66
Vanocur, Sander, i6s 163

f
Verdon, Reni, 69, 218, **i,

5*i
Vietnam,
57, 286
Volpe, John A., 363
Tydings, Joseph, 90
Wade,
Udall, Stewart L.,
14, 60,
Preston, 209
141,219
Wagner, Robert, 88, 89^ 277 Walker, Edwin A., 317

Walker, John, 47
Udo, Pedro, 69
Ulbricht, Walter, 233
Wall Street Journal, 375

Walton, William,
44, 257,
UN, See United Nations

Union of Soviet
Socialist
276
Re
publics, 43-4, 51-3, 57, 59>
Washington Post, 158, 339 Watson, Albert, II, fn. 254
4OO
Webb, James,
120, 121, 122, 158
INDEX
Wilson, William P., 49 Wilson, Mrs. Woodrow, 260
Wise, David, 51-2, 260
Welsh, Matt, 364 Wheeler, Earle G., 257
White, Byron (Whizzer), 146 White, Lincoln, 78

White, Thomas, 126
Woods, George D., 101 Woodward, Robert F.,
21
Wrightsman, Charles, 161
White House
press corps, 31,
50-1, 98-109
Whitney, John
Hay (Jock),
(J.
64
Yates, Sid, 338
Why England Slept

Kennedy), 368
F.
Yntema, Ted, 376

Young, Paul, 39 Young, Mrs. Robert R., 254
Wiesner, Jerome, 111, 112, 113,

120, 121, 122
Wiley, Alexander, 361
Wilson, Don, 273, 275, 276
Zorin, Valerian, 344
HUGH
HUGH
S
1
S I
DEY
EY
is
a fourth-generation journalist. His
great-grandfather and his grandfather founded the Adair County Free Press* a weekly paper in Greenfield, Iowa, and the paper now is run by his father and brother, Sidey learned the mechanical end of the busi ness first feeding presses, setting type and sweeping floors when he still was in grade school. Later he sold ads, wrote stories, took pictures and made the photo engravings. After a hitch in the Army at the end of World War II, he completed his education at Iowa
State College, then began the classical journalistic mi gration from the heartland to Washington. Sidey broke
on the Council Bluffs (Iowa) Nonpareil, where he covered every type of story, then moved across the Mis souri River to The Omaha World-Herald, where for four years he reported from city hall His next move
in
was to New York and a two-year stint with Life maga and then on to Washington, D.C., and Time magazine, where he now remains as White House cor respondent and deputy bureau chief. In 1958 Sidey met John Kennedy in a Senate elevator. Since that time he has followed Kennedy across three continents and has written an estimated million words of background for
zine
Time's editors on the Kennedy phenomenon. Sidey is married to the former Anne Trowbridge, Columbia, Missouri, and the couple have two daughters, Cynthia
and Sandra.
X
'
^
r\
(continued from from flap)
intimate detail, Mr, Sidey relates the events
and emotions of those two years and shows
how
the
new
President grew to be an expe
rienced one. Here you will find the Presi
dent wrestling in the early hours of the
morning with what was
to
become the Bay

Vienna
of Pigs fiasco; the hopeful trip to
and the shocking confrontation with Khru

shchev; the conferences with de Gaulle;
and
toward the end of the second year, the

in
crisis
Mississippi; the decision to face
Arma
in
geddon over Cuba; and the vindication

the
November
elections.
Mr. Sidey has written an exciting book,

of pace
sights
full
and
flavor, a
book that adds rare in

to the
and new dimensions
under
standing of John F Kennedy and his gov
ernment.

Johnfkennedypresident Hugh Sidey

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Reporter's Inside Story

dent in the White House.

has had a unique

view of the making and the testing of an

From the moment of his

ber 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy faced

perhaps any president since

were the problems of Laos, Berlin and

that could not be antici

pated during that cold and snowy wintjsr.

has covered the

Time during the New

about the President, and

CITY, MO. PUBLIC

Sidey John F. Kennedy, President

All rights reserved

Designed by Harry Ford

CITY (MO.) PUBLIC LIBRARY

the floor of the convention

watching him as he addressed Congress and greeted the White House.

through more than a

that material into

along the way would be too long to print.

cities across this

Republicans, Democrats, government workers, and

and Mrs. Robert

Among those who work

convinced at times really keep

government together; the

switchboard operators; and those cheerful,

New Frontiersmen my relationship with Theo

dore C. Sorensen goes back the farthest and

Desautels, Frederick G. Button, Mrs. Lorraine Pearce, Carl

Anne ChamThe same to

appreciation for being incurably optimistic, pleasant and

The Bay of Pigs

London and Home

Midsummer and Worry

A Way of Life A New Year

The People Approve

The Oval Office

came streaming into Washington in January,

wise in the fraternal rituals, eased themselves back into their

government-issue niches in society; the tenderfeet padded

Iowa's own, cut

Michigan, with two distinguished-service awards from the

be registered on the very wouldn't understand.

that those crabcakes are not

start in the congressional kitchens.)

and Sullivan atmosphere, John Ken

third State of the

the southeast gate of the

A fleet of motorcycle police formed a raucous

Forming the New Frontier

C. Sorensen, with a shiny

message he carried in a leather folder on

would reflect it.

warmed the earth

House Chamber, Kennedy had worked at his speech.

TV cameras blazed from

and wages would

preservatives of freedom in the world,

would not begin